Setting Sail
by Zbluez
Summary: "I have seen dragons," he grinned. "I have rescued Kings. I have met giants. I have tamed the scariest monsters in the Grand Line. I have been to an island in the sky, where I have fought God, and won. I have gone back in time, escaped prisons, and found treasures way beyond your wildest imaginings." His grin widened until it showed all his teeth. "Come to the sea with me."
1. Mirrors, Stones, and Rich Bastards

_A.N: I like to think that this story fits in canon. There will be a lot of original and confusing stuff though, so be prepared.  
_

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**SETTING SAIL**

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**Chapter One: Mirrors, Stones, and Rich Bastards**

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The town of Limerick was perched at the shores of the huge Mirror Lake, which actually served to disguise the crater of an extinguished volcano. The lake was so large on misty days you couldn't even see the other side – you couldn't even see the island in the middle of the lake at all.

But if the day was clear, the water stretched out motionless like a flat surface. It danced with the sunlight, reflecting the sky and the clouds and making an inverted copy of the island, so it looked as if a golden diamond were immersed in the middle of the lake.

That island was where the Academy was located, and on clear days you could see it from Limerick in all its mysterious glory. The superstitious folk from the mountains thought it a place where sorcery was common and demons lurked around every corner, and even avoided the mention of its name. But the people of Limerick depended on it, as it was, for them, and for all the surrounding islands, the center of civilization. The Academy was famous for training the best mathematicians, architects, engineers, scientists and investigators, for its great library and the rare materials and objects that were made there. Most of all, the Academy was famous for its Alchemists, many of whom ended up in the Marines as experts in some matter or another.

To the people of Limerick, the Academy was nothing strange. Students and Alchemists came and went all the time, or even lived in the town. The only way to tell them apart was if they had a second purse hanging next to their money purse, though some preferred to hide it, or if they had rings around their fingers, though some preferred not to wear them. So you see: no dark spirits. Just normal people, strolling the streets, looking for supplies for their experiments.

Which was, actually, my case.

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I stalked decidedly towards Limerick's Alchemy shop, my purse heavy at my belt. My investments in Jumma's wine business were starting to pay off – I had just this morning received my part of the profits from the selling of the first crates. And, to me, that was a great relief, a safety net. If I suddenly found myself in need of money, I could count on Jumma to sell a couple of crates and have some coin before too long. If the situation was really dire, I could sell my shares of the business for quick cash.

If you have never been poor, I don't expect you to understand what a relief it is to own something of value that you can count on as a source of regular income. With a full purse for once I could finally buy the Irsha I needed to replace my nearly spent stones. And, if what I'd heard was true, I needed to get there before another Alchemist beat me to it.

The owner of the shop was Frell, a middle-aged woman with the amazing ability to imprison her customers in a cage of gossip and meaningless stories, and keep them there for hours. Even if you were just passing by in the street she'd somehow manage to get you to come inside her shop, and then you could pretty much give up on your whole afternoon, because she wouldn't let you out until sunset. I normally avoided her like the plague – sometimes I even went to the length of bullying my friend (the term friend used loosely here) Will into getting my supplies for me, even if he hated me for days afterwards.

Today, though, I was in a hurry. I couldn't afford leaving this matter up to Will. As soon as he'd told me about the new shipment I'd grabbed my rainy day money and didn't hesitate to stuff it all inside my purse. If what he'd said was true, if it really was a seventy percent, then maybe I'd have just enough for one stone…

When I opened the door the bells above it jingled, and Frell, who'd been sitting at the cashier humming to herself, immediately looked up and her face lit with a huge smile. "Oh, girl, am I glad to see you. You've been avoiding me, haven't you? Always sending that boy instead. But let's leave what's gone, gone. Did you know–"

I quickly cut her off before disaster occurred. "I'm here for the Irsha."

Her face fell slightly. "Oh, the stones, the stones, always the stones. That's all you Academists are ever interested in – and the more expensive stuff like heat rods and water-mirrors never gets sold."

I gave an apologetic smile. "I can make my own heat rods at the…"

"At the labs, yes, yes, I know. I was at the Academy once too, don't forget. Ah, in those times, one had to travel to the Green Sea to buy Irsha, a five-day trip through storms and wind. No handy little shop just downtown all stocked up, waiting for you." She rolled her eyes. "But then again, that's the reason…"

"The stones," I reminded her. "I heard you got a new shipment." Her incessant chatter was already starting to pound on my brain. I could never really stand excessively friendly or talkative people, they got on my nerves with their babbling. But since Frell was my only supplier, I did try to make an effort towards her. Which, for me, didn't mean much beyond an effort to hold back insults and be, at least, half-civil.

She smiled. "Already? I was hopping to keep the secret for a bit longer." She kept talking to herself as she crossed the room towards the far shelf, where the Irsha was displayed in orderly boxes. My breath caught at the sight of the square, red one sitting dead in the center. There were glimpses of black reflections inside. _Seventy percent._

"It's this one," she invited, making a grand gesture with one arm. "You can look at it, but if you drop it…"

I immediately reached for the red box, tuning her out. Inside it I counted six stones, all round and smooth and absolutely black like huge marbles. As I tilted the box, the light shifted on their surface like water, catching it in a shy golden wink. When I touched one, I felt the power it contained humming against my fingers impatiently, and suppressed a shiver of excitement. I had never seen such pure Irsha in my life.

Frell was watching me carefully. "It's going to cost you," she warned. "It's seventy percent, it just arrived a couple hours ago from the Grisly mines. Best quality I've seen in twenty years."

"How much?" I asked breathlessly, still entranced.

"Twenty thousand Beri for one stone."

I bit my lip. That was more than I expected, but then again, it wasn't completely unreasonable, if it came all the way from Grisly. The trouble was, I only had eighteen thousand in my purse. Normally, I'd consider myself rich, but right now it seemed an awfully small amount… I could probably strike a deal with her for eighteen thousand, but then I'd be left penniless, with no means to pay next term's tuition at the Academy. Maybe I could count on Jumma selling a few more crates before the term started, but he'd just paid me this morning… And I still had to eat.

But I knew, as I watched the light shift on the black surface, swirling inside in wisps of gold, that I needed one of these stones. A seventy… I would never have dreamed of holding one, let alone owning it. This opportunity was too great to pass, even if I ended up broke afterwards.

I needed to buy one now, before other Alchemists got wind of it and came in hordes to pillage the shop.

I was about to open my mouth when a voice said from behind me, "I'll take the whole box."

I whirled around, snapping the lid shut, fingers curling around it possessively. The man's voice had been light, almost careless, as if it didn't cross his mind that Frell could actually say no. He was standing with a calculated casual air, dressed in the finest sea-blue velvet vest, adorned with silver cuffs and silver buttons. Just to buy one of those buttons, I would have to save up for my whole life.

He wore a smug smirk on his face. His eyes were a cruel, unfeeling blue, lighter than his vest, like ice.

It said much of my amazement with the stones that I hadn't heard him come in. Normally I was pretty attentive to my surroundings, and the presence of _this bastard_ especially I never failed to notice. I felt my lips curling back in a snarl. "I was here first, Almer. Back off."

He kept speaking to Frell as if he hadn't heard me. "The whole box should be a hundred and twenty thousand, right? I can throw in a couple thousand more for good measure. Compensation for making your stocks run out so soon, if you wish."

Almer had this way of talking, of moving, that could turn from polite, respectful and charming one second to disdainful and cruel the next. The latter was usually how he acted around me, or any commoner for that matter. He would look at us like we were dirt on his shoe, like we were too dirty to even come near his shoe. The former he reserved for convincing middle-aged store owners to sell him what he wanted, or the Tutors at the Academy to believe that I was, in fact, the one who'd mixed potassium with water, and that he had nothing to do with it. For example.

I whirled back to Frell, speaking quickly. "I only want one stone, Frell. I'll pay the twenty thousand. Almer can have the rest."

"Will you even be able to steal that much before the end of the day?" he asked innocently from behind me. "I remember last term you had trouble just paying your meager charity tuition."

I ground my teeth internally. He knew that accusing me of stealing would set me off. I never stole. Stealing was for desperate, hungry people who were not clever enough to get by without breaking the law. I was desperate, and had been hungry at various stages in my life, but I was clever enough. _I never stole._ Everybody who knew me knew it. Frell knew me. I hoped.

I just needed to convince her not to sell him all the stones… As I stared pleadingly at her, her eyes wavered. Almer was one of her best customers – it was probably only due to his extravagant spending that her shop was staying afloat. There were many Alchemists in Limerick, but losing him would undoubtedly mean a huge blow to her business. I kept staring, now cursing myself for not coming by more often. If I had, maybe she would have fallen to my boundless charm, enough to tip the balance in my favor…

Right then the door to the shop opened again. I was so focused on the situation that I didn't catch more than a glimpse of the newcomer. Black hair, red vest, was what I saw of him before dismissing him.

But he made us all start, momentarily breaking the tense atmosphere, when he shouted "Whoa! Amazing! What _is_ this thing!" He ran through the shop like a cannonball, and stopped short in front of the water-mirror, his eyes wide, his jaw hanging stupidly. "It moves!"

I watched him for a second before focusing on Frell again.

"I'll help you out with the shop," I offered, trying to keep the desperate edge off my voice. "I'll work in the afternoons."

"Ten thousand extra," Almer said impassively, and my stomach dropped. A fake smile spread over his face. "I wouldn't trust her with the shop. She couldn't even clean the Academy corridors without lifting lab material."

I faced him, hackles raised. I'd taken up the cleaning job last term because it paid well, and I'd wanted to have enough to help Jumma out with his wine business. _And I didn't steal._ "You don't even need them," I hissed. I didn't usually let my emotions get the best of me, but Almer drove me mad. My voice rose as I talked, until I was almost yelling. "Everybody knows your father gifted you a new set last week! Mine have almost run out! And besides, I was here first! I have the right to make my purchase!"

"Tell you what," he drawled out slowly, his cruel eyes never leaving my face. "I'll pay double price. The whole box for two hundred forty thousand. How does that sound?"

_Damn_ him. Damn his money and his lineage to hell.

I watched somberly as the door slammed shut behind him and he crossed the street, the box under his arm. He shot one last triumphant look at me before turning the corner, his lips curled up smugly. I took a deep breath to steady myself.

What had ever possessed me to think that making an enemy out of Christian Almer, the son of the wealthiest man in the area, was a good idea?

He had screwed me. My fingers started trembling. I _wanted_ that Irsha. It would have meant so much progress in my investigation, a step closer towards my dream. I had just lost the best opportunity I'd come across in my life. To the most arrogant, hateful, and cruel _noble_ in this part of the country, who would never truly appreciate the worth of those stones. _Damn_ him.

I was still standing, jaw tight, when I noticed that the noise around the shop had stopped. Red Vest, who had been trashing around and toppling things over while we argued, was now staring at me silently, in a serious way that didn't let on what he was thinking. He didn't look to be much older than me, either. I hated being stared down by people my own age. "What?" I snapped. "Wanna laugh? Go ahead, you won't be the first."

He remained silent, and, after a moment, turned back to the shelves to examine more objects. I breathed in – no need to take it out on the poor guy. I methodically picked three fifteen percents and brought them to the counter. Their color was dull, grey, completely unlike the majestic black and gold from the Irsha Almer had walked away with.

Frell didn't meet my eyes as she charged me for my purchase, and, for once, didn't try to hold me back when I left either.

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_A.N: Luffy makes a proper entrance next chapter! Be kind and leave a review, guys!_


	2. Everyone Has to Pay

_A.N: So. A couple of you have mentioned the similarities to the Kingkiller Chronicle. It's true, I love those books. They're absolutely amazing. But this is a One Piece fanfic, in the One Piece world with One Piece characters. So don't expect any Kvothe here. _

_And, as always, thanks to those who reviewed :)  
_

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**Chapter Two: Everyone Has to Pay  
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I met Red Vest again at the tavern I worked at. He was wearing a straw hat he didn't have before. I thought his face was familiar from somewhere, but then shrugged it off. Many people came and went in Limerick.

I wasn't actually meant to work today. Carmey had called in sick and asked me to fill in for her, and I'd agreed, since the time I'd planned on spending at the lab had just been kindly freed up by a filthy noble who snatched the stones I was going to experiment on.

_I hope he chokes on them and dies._

I weaved in between the tables carrying drinks, plates of food, and trying to avoid the creepy old man at the corner of the bar. There was a technique to it. You had to move fast enough that he wouldn't have time to do anything more than growl a vulgar remark, but slow enough to smile and wiggle your hips so he left a sizable tip afterwards.

Red Vest wasn't alone. He and his friends were sitting around a table, laughing hard, so hard some of them were rolling on the ground holding their sides. _Weirdos._ I walked out to them and set down the huge plate of meat on the table – I thought it was a bit big for just eight people, but oh well. To my surprise, Red Vest jumped on it like a wolf and swallowed it whole in a matter of seconds, without leaving a single bone to his comrades. Then he turned his head to me and smiled a huge smile. "Can you bring more?"

I just gaped. This wasn't _human._ "More?"

He nodded enthusiastically. Shaking my head in disbelief, I returned to the kitchen, and brought back a new plate. As long as they had the money to pay for it…

I unconsciously rubbed my money purse, different from the one I used to keep my stones. The two of them hung side by side from my belt. The material was smooth and light under my fingers, and I smiled, remembering how it had gotten that way.

Through random experiments last year I'd created a kind of liquid plastic substance that resisted water and was hard to cut through and miraculously flame-resistant as well. I'd been quick to dunk my purses in a bucketful of it – they absorbed it like oil. I liked the thought of my money and my stones being well-protected. I'd used what was left of it to cover my clothes and my coat. Now they were all a hue darker, but weightless and flexible; I could probably run through a blazing inferno and emerge fully-clothed, which was quite handy since fires in the labs weren't exactly rare.

I would have become rich with that… All-Proof Substance, had it not been completely random. I'd been sleep-deprived for three days when I made it, and as I came back to check up on it the next morning, I couldn't for the life of me remember what I had put in there. No matter how hard I'd tried to recreate it, the results were always disastrous. So, rather than selling it, I'd used it for myself, which had proved to be a good idea, since, as well as turning my clothes water and fire resistant it prevented their decay and made them easy to wash. It had saved me a lot of money in the long run.

A racket in the common room brought me running out of the kitchen, intrigued, to barely catch a glimpse of Red Vest and his friends high-tailing it out of there. The manager was at the door, shaking his fist in the air and shouting insults at them. "Eat-and-run?" I asked evenly.

"Yeah," he confirmed, barely pausing to continue his string of profanities. And off I was, racing after them.

As I ran I tore off the waitress apron and let it fall to the side of the street. I was a fast runner, but damn, they could run too. One of the group, a freak with a long nose, looked back and saw me chasing. "Eeeeek! Disperse!" he shouted, and they all split up into different streets. The efficient way they did it told me that this was not the first time they were running from angry tavern-workers. I chose to go after Red Vest himself, who was laughing wildly as he ran, as if it were all a great game.

I stuffed my hand in my stone-purse and picked out two of them, making sure, out of the corner of my eye, that the runes on them were correct, before knocking them together and murmuring a chain. I had to concentrate so that the percentages were what I wanted and not more, and then threw them both in the guy's direction. They landed on the ground just in front of him, there was a flash, and, suddenly, he smashed straight into an invisible wall.

I came up to him puffing. "You. Didn't. Pay," I accused angrily, my face red. I hated thieves, and that included food-thieves. He looked up at me from the ground, not the least bit intimidated by my accusation.

"Guess we didn't, huh," he grinned, rubbing his head. He lightly got up and, turning towards my wall, let out a loose punch. The wall didn't even flinch. "What is that? It wasn't there before."

"Don't bother trying to break it. It's indestructible," I replied, rather smugly. He obviously wasn't familiar with Alchemy, which meant he was a stranger to Limerick. A foreigner. Someone who came from the sea. "Now. Come with me to the constable."My voice turned somber. "We have a money issue to fix."

"Oh, really? Indestructible? FUN!" He took a few steps back. I watched him calmly. It wasn't like he was going to get anywhere. And what exactly was so fun about a wall?

Fifteen percent Irsha wasn't much, but still enough to resist a force of forty thousand heims, which was about the kinetic energy of a fist flying at the speed of a bullet. Even with a run-up, he wouldn't be able to break through it. "Unless you can punch faster than a bullet, you'll shatter your hand, and your whole arm…" my words died on my lips.

He didn't run. As I watched, mouth slowly opening in amazement, his arm started spinning faster and faster around his shoulder, until it was too blurry to see. "Gum-Gum…" and he let loose, only it stretched and stretched in front of him, like an elastic. "Pistol!"

It pierced right through my beautiful wall, shattering it to shards which glittered as they fell.

"Shishishi," he laughed again, looking back at me. "Not _that_ indestructible, after all." And he took off.

I was too stunned to do anything but stay frozen and gape. How could anyone punch with the force of forty thousand heims?

After a moment, I bent down to pick up my stones numbly, trying to figure out an explanation. Had I messed up the chain? I had never gotten my wordings wrong in my life, even under the most tense of situations. The runes, then? Had I not knocked them at the right angle? Puzzled, I ran my thumb over the surface of the stone, feeling the small creases of the carvings. All seemed in order. So how…? And what the heck was with his _arm_?

A harsh voice pulled me from my thoughts. "You are a disgrace to all alchemists," he sentenced, stepping out from the shadows. "Can't even recite a simple static chain properly."

"You are a disgrace to humanity," I replied automatically. I was still examining the floor, trying to understand. The fact that Almer had seen the whole thing and not helped me didn't surprise me at all. I wouldn't help him either, not in a million years. "So I'm guessing I got the better end of the bargain."

After a silence Almer took a step closer, his voice now dark and menacing, the atmosphere shifting entirely. "You'll pay, you low-life wench, for stealing that Irsha."

I slowly straightened and turned back to him, hardly believing my ears. The matter of Red Vest could wait. I had a much more despicable human being available to vent my furies out on. "Ha!" I laughed. "Somebody stole them? Ha!" An intense feeling of satisfaction settled in my chest, and I resisted the urge to start clapping and singing. Those seventy percents he had stolen from me had been stolen from him in turn! "Maybe the world _is_ fair after all."

He took another step forwards, blue eyes flat. "I know it was you, bitch."

The hostility between Almer and me had never been a secret. We loathed each other, ever since the first day we met at the Academy and he overheard me cursing his family. It sort of spiraled down from there. Everybody that knew us knew about it. Even people who didn't know us knew about it. But, despite the hostile words and veiled insults, we had never gone beyond that, _veiled_ insults, not in public.

The raw name-calling was refreshing, in a way. "It wasn't me," I grinned. "Though if I'd known it'd get your panties in such a wad, I wouldn't have hesitated."

I noticed then that he, too, was clutching two stones tightly. They weren't measly fifteens, either; by the color of them, probably fifties at least. His white knuckles put me on the alert, and I sobered instantly. "You'll pay," he repeated, a dark promise in his voice.

I took a step back, fingers closing over my own stones.

If you have witnessed a fight between Alchemists, then I'm sure I do not need to remind you how it goes. If you haven't, you need to know that they can drag on for hours, or even days on end, and they result in an almost total destruction of the surrounding area. Neither Almer nor I were full-fledged Alchemists yet, but we were certainly powerful enough to wreck the whole street if we started a fight here. So I bit back my defying "_Make me,"_ knowing that, while he could surely bribe his way out of trouble afterwards, I didn't exactly have money to spare.

I'd probably be banned from the Academy, too.

But there was another reason why I backed down, even though I would never admit it to myself. There are three factors that decide the outcome of a fight: the chaining skill of the Alchemists, the Irsha each of them has at their disposal, and luck. I was excellent at Chaining, to say the least; but Almer had fifties, and luck had never been on my side. My brain quickly calculated how many heims of energy he had over me and came to a quick conclusion.

I might as well have been the First Alchemist. It wouldn't have been a fight, it would have been a one-sided slaughter. He would have killed me like a chicken.

So that was why I lowered my eyes, wincing. I hated this man with all my soul, but the truth was that I couldn't do a jot about it. "I didn't steal your stones, Almer," I repeated, dropping mine in my purse. Even as I spoke I felt a slow, building hatred burn inside of me.

It wasn't enough to appease him. He stalked over and grabbed me roughly by the arm. I could tell he was angry, very angry. "Of course you did, you filthy roadside slut. Whoring and stealing is all you're good for."

My whole body went completely still at his words. "And you're going to pay for it," he added, throwing me to the ground and stalking away, wiping his hand like he couldn't believe he'd actually touched me.

I stayed still for a moment, then stood up and dusted myself off, my expression blank.

I was raging so strongly my face muscles didn't seem to know how to express it. _Filthy roadside slut._ It stung more than I wanted to admit.

"Why didn't you say anything?" a voice asked to my left. Red Vest was perched on top of a box, looking at the scene intently.

"He's got twice as much money as God," I replied, somehow not surprised to see him there. "Not much I can do to him."

He wrinkled his nose. "That's stupid. Just punch him."

I rolled my eyes at his idiocy. "It's not so simple as that. He's got more Irsha than me! And if I ever so much as touched a hair on his head, he'd send the whole country after me." _Last time I punched him I spent the night in a cell, too._

He looked at me like I was dumb. "So?"

"So I'll be an outlaw," I said slowly. God, it was like explaining something to a child.

"I still don't see what the problem is." He was silent for a minute. "Did you really steal his treasure?"

"No! Of course not!" Then I remembered I was supposed to be chasing him. "Hey! You need to pay."

He grinned. "Can't. I'm broke. Guess I'm an outlaw." I was about to launch myself at him when he stretched his arm again and grabbed the corner of a roof, and propelled himself onto the air.

I grimly grit my teeth, clicked two of my stones together, and was airborne too, flying after him. So he could somehow stretch his body. Fine. I was (almost) an Alchemist. I'd seen stranger things. And I had my tricks too.

But I realised, as I sailed through the air, that I had overestimated myself. You can't even fathom the amount of concentration needed to keep such a complex inertial chain solid. Let me just say that, between that and the knot of angry emotions building inside me, I failed to notice my Irsha had run out, and slammed into the wall of the building rather than soar above it.

Stars exploded in my brain, and I blacked out.


	3. Water Boils at One Hundred Degrees

_A.N. Thank you guys a bunch for your reviews!_

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**Chapter Three: Water Boils at One Hundred Degrees  
**

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I realize I have not yet given my name.

I am Maria Clockwork, daughter of Felicia Clockwork, one of the greatest Alchemists and researchers of her time. She was the one who added the improvements to the heat rod which allow us to use it today without burning off half our fingers. She discovered a new kind of inertial chain. She researched the Potential Heimeter.

You may ask why I have taken her surname instead of my father's. I may not answer.

While my mother was alive I couldn't have led a better life. She loved me with all her heart, even if her work occupied great portions of her time, and sometimes she couldn't pay attention to me. But that was fine. She let me run around and do what I wanted and get into all sorts of trouble. Like any other kid, I returned home at the end of the day with scrapes on my knees and dirt on my face, but she'd just laugh, and, while she sat me at the kitchen table and cleaned me up, she would ask what I'd learned.

"Water boils at a hundred degrees," I'd answered once. We had been climbing up trees and grabbing eggs from nests and boiling them to eat them.

She nodded. "But that depends on the pressure."

I was surprised. "It does?"

"It's a positive correlation. The more pressure there is, the higher the temperature at which it boils." She finished putting a band aid on me. "What else?"

I racked my head for a minute, and, when I didn't come up with anything, decided to take a gamble. "Sunlight is made of all other colors."

She smiled, amused. "And how did you figure that out?"

"There was a rainbow on the Mirror Lake. You could only see it when the sun was at your back, so I thought sunlight had something to do with it..."

"It's called light dispersion." She got me down from the table and patted my head. "Have your dinner, and off to bed you go."

When I turned six she started teaching me more formally. I already knew how to read and write, but she brushed up on my grammar and spelling. She taught me the scientific method and how to handle lab equipment. She taught me maths and basic physics. I learned that it was the hydrogen bonds that made water boil at one hundred degrees and the different wavelengths of visible light that made different colors.

She started teaching me Alchemy. Nothing serious, mind you. I couldn't have my own stones, I was forbidden from even touching an Alchemy stone. But out of all the disciplines, it was the one that fascinated me the most, maybe because it was still mysterious, because it hadn't all been explained. I learned the basic principles with almost no effort at all, and we soon moved on to punctual chains. I could tell my interest and ability made her proud, and our Alchemy lessons grew longer every day while Maths and Physics became shorter. Some days she didn't have time, but I didn't mind, because then she'd leave me books and I would spend the afternoon happily reading away. Learning. Gathering knowledge which would be burned in my memory.

But then she died. The Potential Heimeter she was trying to create exploded and destroyed the better part of the Academy labs, killing everyone in them. It was a very dishonorable death. The Academy didn't want it to get out that one of their best researchers had made such an elemental mistake in a simple experiment, but the news spread like wildfire. Within two days I was known as the daughter of the woman responsible for the death of five of her coworkers.

The Academy didn't quite know what to do with me. I was a half-trained Alchemist much too young to join their ranks. They gave me a tutor who hated me because his wife had died in the explosion. I don't doubt that, before the incident, he was a kind-hearted fellow, but his wife's death made him lose his mind. He refused to feed me sometimes and beat me at night. I appealed to the Academy but they brushed me off - I was eleven. After two months I ran away.

I guess I was lucky. I had barely been living in the streets for a week before Jumma picked me up. He clothed me and fed me when he had the money for it, and when he didn't he still let me use his house to get away from the rain. I still don't know why he did it. Maybe he knew my mother. But thanks to him I became a human being, I felt like I had a sort of home again.

When I turned fifteen, I took the entrance test to the Academy and was accepted with the highest score seen in ten years.

* * *

But, of course, even the best Alchemists make mistakes, and I was no exception. That run-in with the wall made me realize I had grown quite arrogant lately. It was a healthy dose of reality. The next morning found me in the labs of the Academy, engraving runes on the three stones I'd bought from Frell, a fresh new bandage around my head. It drew curious glances and badly-concealed whispers, which I was doing my best to ignore.

I decided to make them the traditional heat, light and sound, the combination that could create practically all phenomena known to Alchemy. The old ones that had run out yesterday were in my "used stones" box, gathering dust. I finished up on the runes, turned off the flame, lifted my goggles and admired my work for a moment. Walls aside, I was truly a skilled Alchemist. Sometimes I amazed even myself.

My peers knew it too. "Whoa," Lyanna whistled, looking over my shoulder. "How can you even fit your runes like that?"

I grinned. Not everyone could chain a rune to another so smoothly, so coherently. I had clever fingers for carving, but I knew my runes inside and out, too, and could tell which one fit where almost on instinct. A carved stone was meant to look like a beautiful, finished sentence, but not many Alchemists, not even full-fledged, went beyond the babbling syllables stage.

My stones were the equivalent of poetry, rhyming verse so perfect you could almost hear the melody in it.

Lyanna had on more than one occasion asked me to carve her own stones, and she wasn't the only one. The first time it had happened I'd been baffled. Asking another Alchemist to do your work for you was like asking them to sleep with your husband. It required a great amount of pride-swallowing. I had, of course, refused. Carving Irsha was leaving your mark on it forever, like linking it to a piece of yourself. Unlike what Almer seemed to think, I wasn't one for sleeping around.

After leaving my stones to cool I decided to make a trip to the Academy's Library and investigate the possibility of stretching limbs.

I strolled past the front desk without the clerk even looking up at me, and headed to the Cataloguing section. Red Vest didn't seem to know drat about Alchemy, so I started looking under the other sciences. The sheer variety made me realize, again, how huge the Academy was. I'd sort of been confined to the Alchemy and Physics sectors for most of my studies – but I was thrown off-balance when I remembered just how many there were.

After a couple of hours, I found what I'd been looking for. The book's title was _Devil Fruits: their forms and origins_. I should have known. Devil Fruits in the Striped Islands were rare, but I'd heard about them in my classes; the book's author, Dr. Vegapunk, had been a student at the Academy many years ago. After some ruffling I decided Red Vest was probably a Paramecia type, but didn't find any particular one that quite fit what he could do.

I didn't have much more time before my shift at the tavern, but I looked through a couple other books anyway. I hated being ignorant about something so close to me.

I paused to read the noticeboard on the wall before exiting the Library. _Looking for a tutor in Advanced Algebra. Two hundred Beri the hour._ I frowned, considering it for a second. I knew Algebra, but the prospect of spending my afternoons teaching a useless first-termer wasn't very appealing. At least, my job at the tavern was fun, sometimes, even if it resulted in a few injuries, and it paid better. _LOST: BLUE PENDANT WITH GOLD ENGRAVINGS REWARD OFFERED._ I made a note of that one. _Important Notice: the students who failed second term examinations should go to…_

There was nothing much more interesting, apart from the usual Wanted Posters and other petty notices. I was about to leave when I suddenly froze and turned around.

There, on the right hand corner of the board, was nailed a picture of silly smiling guy in a red vest.

"Holy shit," I muttered. The clerk shot me a disapproving look.

That didn't begin to cover it.

_WANTED,_ the poster read. _Dead or Alive: Monkey D. Luffy._ I stared, uncomprehending, at the ridiculous number under his head. It was the highest bounty on the wall by far. The longest string of zeroes I had seen in my life behind a Beri sign, the kind of number my mother had used to explain scientific notation when I was seven.

How could I not have noticed it sooner? He wasn't Red Vest, he was Straw Hat. Monkey D. Luffy, Captain of the Straw Hat Pirates. They were infamous – everybody knew about the crazy things they'd done. A part of me was feeling annoyed with myself for not having realized the coincidence, even though I walked past this poster several times every day. The other part was still struggling with the new information.

Not many pirates came to the Striped Islands. It was a bit of an oddity on the Grand Line, since it wasn't on any of the courses normally followed by the Log Pose. It was so out of the way that its magnetic field didn't reach to the normal navigation routes. The only way to get to these islands was with an Eternal Pose, which were strictly reserved to Marines, Alchemists, and occasionally merchants. So how had Straw Hat gotten his hands on one?

I realised, as I remembered back, that the guys sitting with him at the tavern had probably been his crew. There was that green-haired swordsman… I looked for his bounty on the board, and found it, a completely unreasonable amount as well. _Roronoa Zoro_. There was a black-haired woman, _Nico Robin._ I paused to consider her for a minute. I'd heard of Nico Robin before I'd heard of the Straw Hats. The demon from Ohara, the eight-year-old girl who had survived the destruction. From one researcher to another, I felt a certain sympathy, even though I'd been smart enough to avoid investigating things that would put such a bounty on my head. And she, quite obviously, hadn't.

Well. I couldn't remember the other crewmembers' faces.

But one thing was clear. We had a very, very dangerous pirate crew in town.


	4. Don't Walk Alone at Night

**Chapter Four: Don't Walk Alone at Night**

* * *

I was making my way slowly to the tavern, giving myself time to think. I did not want another meeting with Straw Hat. Whatever their motives were for coming to the Striped Islands, I had no desire to butt in. My natural curiosity had been quenched by the sight of those bounties. Trying to catch them didn't even cross my mind. Danger followed those kinds of people like their shadows, and, for now, I would be content not to see them again for a long, long while. My whole life, if possible.

Which brought me to another question. Why had they run away from me? Pirates with a bounty like that were strong and bent to no rules; they wouldn't bother running, they would have wrecked the tavern and left like it was nobody's business. And beaten me if I chased. And killed me afterwards, laughing like madmen. Instead they had fled like any petty thief. Perhaps they didn't want to create trouble? Then why hadn't they simply paid?

I frowned as I realized they probably didn't want to broadcast their presence. The Academy was closely affiliated with the Marines, after all. And though Alchemists were more inclined to research and investigation, we had battle specialists, too. Plus the students strong enough to be considered full Alchemists in practice, if not in name, it added up to quite a lot of people that could cause them trouble –

Someone was following me, trailing me through the dark alleyways. They had been shortening the distance between us in the last few minutes. I kept walking with the same lazy strides, nothing that would betray I'd noticed them. My hand casually brushed my stone purse, before I remembered I'd left the Irsha to cool at the labs.

That sent the first trickle of fear down my spine. I could stand my ground against any rogue if I had Irsha. But without it, I was harmless as a kitten.

I forced myself to keep an even pace, thinking _fast._ The tavern was still far, three more streets and around the corner. If I broke into a run, maybe I could make it, but if it was an Alchemist tailing me, they'd catch up to me in no time. My hands started to sweat. Whoever it was, he had been following me for too long to be any random drunk. Maybe Almer had finally decided on his revenge. Or what if Straw Hat hadn't liked my invisible wall after all?

I started rummaging through the pockets of my cloak, looking for something I could use. Anything. Alcohol would do nicely. A small water-mirror, even. Something flammable, there had to be something flammable… My fingers stumbled upon the small chisel and riffler for carving, and I paused. Potential knives. It would have to do.

The tension of a battle was nothing new to me. I had fought and won many duels in the Academy. Still, my battles always involved precise energy calculation, strings of chains one after the other, careful planning, and lots of mental acrobatics. I had never _knifed_ anyone (or, as it was the case, _chiselled_); I could barely remember the last time I threw a punch… Actually, I could. It had been Almer, too, very satisfying. Unfortunately, that episode ended with a cold, hungry night in the Town Hall's cells for me.

The steps were getting closer. I decided to act first, since, if it really was an Alchemist, I wouldn't have a chance once they made their move. So I casually turned the corner and waited.

I caught him – or rather, her – off guard, and I didn't hesitate. My chisel headed straight for her scarred face, but she blocked my arm and elbowed me on the ribs, sending a sharp flower of pain blooming on my side. She struck my neck, and I think I passed out for a couple of seconds there. Next a hard blow to the jaw that rattled my teeth, another punch, my arm twisting…

I was not one for giving up. I kicked her leg, without much result, and grasped and tore at her shirt. She tried to do the same, but found my coat resistant to her claws, and decided that hitting me would be more productive.

I'd been screaming my head off for a long while by now, like mad, louder with each hit. I bit her, yanked on her hair and generally thrashed around wildly, but she knew what she was doing. I felt a sharp click that indicated she had dislocated my shoulder. Then a blow to the head that made me see stars, then my knee snapping. The beating was ruthless, almost methodical, and I could feel myself slipping. My cries became louder – I refused to give up under the rain of blows.

Apparently deciding that she'd had enough, she trapped my neck under her arm and started squeezing. I gasped wildly, fingers closed around her arm, but it was strong like a vice. Pain I could stand. Bones would heal. But death was scarily final, and at that moment I was very, very afraid.

I tried to turn my head slightly to avoid her crushing my windpipe, and it cleared up the light-headedness momentarily. I bit her again, this time desperately, like an animal, sinking my teeth into her flesh as if I actually wanted to tear a bit of her hand off. She didn't let go. My mind snapped back to that week in the streets when I was eleven, the stench of beer on his breath and his greasy fingers clasping around my neck, his other hand around my body...

Desperation. Terror. Darkness. For a moment, that was all I knew. He kept squeezing while he laughed, and I was suffocating...

Something pulled me out of the memory. I don't know what it was. Perhaps it was just me. Perhaps I had grown. Perhaps I was no longer helpless. Perhaps I was more angry than afraid.

It was sudden. One moment I was lost, the next cold fury reeled in me the likes of which I had never felt before. It was the kind of fury behind the advance of a glacier, the rumbling of thunder deep inside me. My mind became still. Deathly still even as my body thrashed around. Motionless like the eye of a storm as I watched everything happening around me. Still despite the thinning air and quickly darkening vision. It was an odd sensation, but not one I was unfamiliar with. A great part of being an Alchemist was training your mind into obedience, subduing it to your will, bending it so that it would never, ever spin out of your control. And perhaps my fury had reminded me of that.

I might have said this before, but I was a great Alchemist. In the midst of the calm I thought. And I remembered the heat rod tucked safely in the inner left pocket of my cloak. My fingers found it, curling around it, and…

"Hey!" Somebody shouted. Then, hurried running. Cursing, my attacker let me go and raced out of my reach.

I reeled back, slamming my head against the wall and crumbling to the floor, the world picking up its pace again as an avalanche of sensations rushed into me all at once. I could taste blood, felt it prickling from my temple, my hair matted with it. The pain in my nose, in my shoulder and my ribs, the rasping in my throat. My fingers opened limply to let the unused heat rod roll to the ground.

The man who'd shouted ran past me, but stopped when he heard me cough. "I'll catch him for you," he said, and bulled ahead. The voice sounded disturbingly familiar.

I concentrated on breathing shallowly and ignoring the pain in every part of my body. When I felt like I could move, I shifted slightly, then curled into a ball, biting my tongue. _Two cracked ribs,_ a part me informed coldly while I just lay there, shivering. _Dislocated shoulder. Broken nose…_ Yeah, difficult to breathe, and definitely what hurt most at the moment.

I clenched my teeth, slowly brought my good arm up, and set my painful shoulder straight again with a sharp jerk. Then I put both my hands on either side of my nose, twisted, and cried out, but as soon as I'd done it the pain faded and my vision returned.

I lay there for a long while. I don't know how long, but it was enough for the shivering to stop and for me to feel like I could stand again. I got up painfully, leaning on the wall. All I wanted was to be far away from here, far away from danger.

Unfortunately, the man was back in front of me before I'd had time to limp three steps, holding the unconscious woman by the collar. I nearly fainted when I saw his face.

Could this get any worse?

"Are you okay?" Straw Hat asked, worry plain on his moonlit features. "I got her for you!" He waved the woman around as if that should make me feel better.

I laughed dryly, the movement tugging at my ribs. "You knocked her out. What good does that do me?"

His face pulled into a confused frown.

I sighed. It really was like explaining something to a child. How could this guy have such a high bounty? "I could have questioned her."

"Oh. Sorry." He grinned, not looking sorry at all, his teeth white in the darkness. "I'm Luffy, by the way."

"Don't worry about it. I'm Maria." I grimaced and looked down at her again, my voice becoming sombre. "I already know who it was, anyway."

"Really? Who?"

"Almer." Obviously. The name tasted bitter, like paper. He had warned me I was going to pay, and while he couldn't afford going after me himself, as even he couldn't get away scot-free from murder... "He hired her." He had enough money to hire an entire army if he wanted to.

I was in an odd state of mind, strangely unshaken by my brush with death. I thought, mildly alarmed, that I might be in shock, but then dismissed the idea. A little shaken, sure, and my ribs had started to hurt now that I'd fixed my nose. But I was in full control of myself, the same odd anger burning inside me.

Then again, death? Murder? Really? The experience had been terrifying, but it just… Limerick was a good town. Sure, people got beat up on the backstreets once in a while. But murder? We hadn't had one in years.

As I stared at the woman I noticed she had a knife on her belt. Her features were plain, but there were scars on her face, which definitely marked her as a hired thug. If she had orders to kill me, she could have done it straightaway. No; Almer probably just asked her to give me a scare. Knock me around a bit, steal my money and my stones in retaliation, and leave me bleeding on the ground, or something of the sort. Somehow, that made me even angrier.

I sighed, straightened, and started walking again. He dropped the woman and kept the pace besides me. Straw Hat Luffy, captain of one of the most dangerous crews in the Grand Line, was walking besides me. I almost found it funny. "That's cowardly," he said after a while, frowning. "If he has a problem, he should settle it himself."

I smirked. "You have high morals, for a pirate." My ribs were killing me with each step. Going to work was obviously out of the question. I wouldn't get many tips with the way I probably looked at the moment.

"I know!" His eyes suddenly brightened. "Let's go to his house! Then you can just punch him in the face."

I smiled, deciding to be amused, rather than annoyed, by his stupidity. "Can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not strong enough to just 'punch him in the face'. If I had stones, and I were lucky enough, then maybe I could beat him, but dueling is prohibited outside the Academy. They would kick me out."

"So?"

I laughed. He couldn't be that dumb, could he? "So, I won't be able to use the labs. I won't be able to complete my research! If it weren't for that, I would have confronted him long ago. But his father runs practically everything around here," I said bitterly. "If I want to stay, I have to put up with him." A sudden wave of dizziness overtook me, and I had to catch his arm to avoid falling. After a couple of seconds I regained my balance and let go.

He looked at me sideways, deciding not to comment on my sudden weakness, and when I had regained my breath we started walking again. "Why don't you just leave, then?"

I rolled my eyes. Was Straw Hat deaf, as well as dumb? "I told you. My research. I have to finish it. It's really important to me."

"What's _research?_"

"It's investigating," I explained, glad for somebody who listened, even if it was a dunce with an eye-boggling bounty on his head. Not many people cared, and explaining would take my mind off the pain. "I'm investigating how to dowse out Irsha stones. I believe there is a better way to find them than blowing up random mountains. So many heims of energy stored inside a small-packed mass should be easy to detect by Heimeters, but it isn't – they're only good for measuring the energy that is released, not what is contained." I paused. "And the purer the stone is, the easier it should be to dowse out. If I complete a Potential Heimeter, I could find a one hundred percent stone." I licked my lips. "Imagine that. An unlimited source of energy."

"I don't get it," he said in a monotone, his tone indicating quite blatantly that I had lost him at 'Irsha'.

I rolled my eyes; should have expected it. Then an idea occurred to me. "Do you want to hear a story? I think you'll understand." There was still a long way till we reached my little cabin on the outskirts of Limerick, and I needed something to keep me awake. I suspected I had a concussion – falling asleep right now probably wouldn't be a good idea.

His eyes lit up. "A story? Cooooooool."

I looked around at the star-lit sky, at the moon full and round above us, at the shine in his eyes, and took a deep breath.


	5. Dragons, Glass Trees and Evil Alchemists

_A.N.: This chapter is a bit short, but I'm actually quite proud of it. Enjoy!_

* * *

**Chapter Five: Dragons, Glass Trees and Evil Alchemists**

* * *

They say there exists a place called Flimariel_._ In that place, rivers flow with liquid gold and trees seem to be made of glass. The ground is the color of solid amber and white stone, and the stars are actual diamonds hanging from the sky, glittering like a million eyes in the night.

_Yosh… I like this story already. Sounds like the One Piece._

_It's not! It's called Flimariel. Just listen._

It is said that Flimariel was filled with magic. Magic of the most wonderful kind, magic swirling in the air that would give power to any that breathed it, magic in the glass of the trees and the gold of the river and the shine of the stars. In ancient times many adventurers spent their lives searching for Flimariel in the hopes of tasting just a bit of that magic. But that was long, long ago, so long ago that it was just a story to the people of this story.

The truth was, they all hated Flimariel. They cursed it like a place of demons and dark spirits. Nobody would even dream of going there – nobody even dared mention it. For in Flimariel lived a great dragon, greater than an island, so great it could simply swallow them entire with mountains and rivers and lakes included.

_I met a fish like that once._

_Just listen to the story!_

The dragon was a cruel, dark creature. It enjoyed torturing the people of the world and making them suffer. It was black and fierce, with horns and spikes on its humongous tail and claws longer than trees and sharper than swords. Its eyes were an eerie gold, with rings of amber around narrow pupils, like a snake's.

But the most terrifying thing about the dragon was its magic. It had lived in Flimariel for so long, breathing the swirling air, drinking the golden river, eating the clear glass trees, that magic ran through its veins thicker than blood. It was the reason it was so large, the reason its teeth were so sharp and its scales so hard to break. Its magic was what protected it from harm and let it run rampant in the world and do as it wished. The brave warriors that sometimes fought to protect their islands were all killed or eaten without mercy.

One day the dragon descended from Flimariel and destroyed a whole island for no apparent reason. The people expected to have some peace after that, because when it ate an island the dragon usually had to spend years digesting it. Normally, it returned to Flimariel and slept, and didn't wake up for a long time. But the next day it descended again, and ate another one. And the day after, two more. Alarmed, the people went to ask their Elders if they could do anything about the monster's rampage.

They didn't know. Nothing could be done. It was best to wait and hope it would end soon.

But the dragon didn't stop. The day after eating two, it ate another two, and the day after, another three islands. Its hunger seemed to grow each time, and the people said that they'd had enough, despite the warnings of the Elders. They agreed that the dragon had to be killed, no matter the cost. And they decided to all band together to defeat the dragon.

The whole world, every single man, woman and child fought together against the dragon. The war lasted three days and three nights, and it was the most bloody and ferocious battle to ever happen until that day. It split the land and the sea and the sky, and, when the monster finally fell, only thirteen people remained standing, six women and seven men.

Twelve of them wanted to destroy Flimariel, lest another monster made it its home and became powerful as the dragon. The thirteenth was barely more than a child, and he thought the magic in that place was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He simply couldn't stand the idea of such a precious treasure being lost forever. But he was just one, and he was just a child, so he could do nothing as the others made their way into Flimariel with burning torches.

It took them a time to figure out how to burn the golden river, but they managed it. It took them a time to build ladders long enough that they could burn the stars. The trees were surprisingly the hardest, but they did manage it in the end. In total, it took them eight days to burn the place to the ground.

Then, they decided to burn the dragon as well, so that truly no magic remained in the world. Once again, the child could only watch while they built many huge bonfires around the dragon, and the body caught fire. It shone brightly for another six days before every bit of the dragon's flesh was consumed. When the task was done, they looked for other survivors, rebuilt their village, and started living again.

However, some say that, after the dragon's body had completely burned away, the child explored through the ashes. They say he found the three hearts of the great dragon, three stones golden like the river of Flimariel which were miraculously intact. They looked awfully small for a beast so big, but they were made of pure, solid magic, of the nature of Flimariel itself, as that was where all the dragon's magic blood returned with each heartbeat, where the essence of Flimariel's air and light and trees was contained. The child was so happy his eyes filled with tears, and put the three stones in his pocket before anyone noticed.

_Oh, mystery stones._

_I said shut up! We're almost at the end._

He became the First Alchemist, able to draw on the stones' power whenever he wished. When he grew up he ruled over the rest like a tyrant, worse even than the dragon itself. And when he realized his time was ending, he became mad. He used the stones to try to make himself immortal, but nothing, not even the greatest magic, can make anybody immortal. And so the stones broke and dispersed all over the world, mixing with ordinary stones, and later Alchemists would use the bits and pieces to craft chains and bindings and move nature to their desire.

The dragon's three hearts are also known as the first three Irsha stones of heat, light and sound, and the only ones to be completely pure. When they shattered Flimariel's power was lost forever, and the Irsha in the stones we use today is a mere echo of what it once was.

But that is not the end of the story. Some Alchemists believe that one of the stones did not, in fact, break, that the Alchemist had been weakened by his two previous attempts at immortality and didn't have the power to try again with the third stone. They believe it still lies intact somewhere, an infinite source of energy. Fools and dreamers have set out to find it through the ages, the same way they would search for Flimariel itself in other times. But none were successful. Now, an Alchemist who is set on doing something extremely reckless or stupid is said to be "chasing the third stone."

* * *

The silence stretched comfortably between us after I finished. Luffy shook his head as if waking up from a slumber and glanced around, surprised. His eyes acquired a distant look, as if he were thinking. I had a feeling I wouldn't see that expression on his face very often, so I made sure to engrave it in my memory. "That is one hell of a story," he finally said. "Almost better than Usopp's."

I smiled. The way he said it, it was obviously a compliment.

He breathed in. "So the kid was evil?"

I nodded. "Very evil. The First Alchemist was a traitor to the twelve that fought besides him, that protected him from the dragon. He kept the stones when he should have destroyed them, and he didn't hesitate to use their power. And then, he tried to become immortal." I shook my head. "He was evil, and stupid. But Alchemy would not exist without him, according to the story."

Luffy glanced at me sideways, a strange expression on his face. I smiled. "Most of that is just nonsense, a bedtime tale. But there is some truth in it. For example, I believe Irsha stores a special kind of energy, like magic. Ancient magic, maybe. And I don't think it's far-fetched to assume a pure Irsha stone exists somewhere – the purest Irsha known today is a ninety percent, in the hands of the World Government. And it is true that light, sound and heat are the bases of Alchemy." I paused. I could tell by his face that I had lost him again. "You're a Devil Fruit User. I'm sure you've heard of the seastone."

He scrunched up his nose. "Nasty stuff. I wouldn't eat one if I got paid to."

I was momentarily off-balance. Did he classify substances by their _edibility_?

"The seastone is a special kind of Irsha. Instead of liberating heims, it absorbs them. At first they tried using it to nullify the power of Alchemists, though it turned out to affect Devil Fruit users instead. It is, essentially, a stone of sound."

He frowned. "That doesn't make sense."

I shrugged. "It doesn't always make sense. Alchemists are constantly bickering about the true nature of Irsha. Even the story I told you has many different versions. I've heard of one in which the First Alchemist is not an Alchemist at all, but just a boy who manages to steal some fruits from the glass trees of Flimariel while the others are busy burning the river, and hides them in the bottom of the sea. They later become known as Devil Fruits."

We arrived to my cabin. The moon was pale over us like a wan smile in the sky, illuminating our faces with a dim, ghostly light. I placed my hand on the door, murmured a chain, and it clicked open underneath my fingers. My ribs were hurting again, now that I had nothing to distract me, and all I wanted was to go to bed.

I looked back at Straw Hat before going inside. "What are you doing here, pirate? The Striped Islands aren't exactly safe for your kind."

He grinned a wide, innocent grin. "We were blown here by a storm. We're just exploring." Strangely, I believed him. He did seem the kind of idiot captain that would sail his ship into a storm for fun. "Well, good night," he added. "Next time you see that stupid rich face, punch him. And then, go out to sea with me. I've always wanted a storyteller on my ship." He gave me a thumbs up and skipped away in the night before I could reply.

I stood still for a couple of seconds, stunned. Then I decided my concussed, pain-exhausted brain had made up that last part, shook my head, and closed the door.

* * *

_A.N: What did you think of Flimariel's story? Just to be clear, I made it up. Nothing like that appears in the manga or the anime. And the Alchemy Maria does is made up as well; it has nothing to do with FullMetal Alchemist. Just so people don't get confused._

_One more thing. Next chapter might not be up until Wednesday. It's a really important one and it needs lots of editing. Hope you guys don't mind._


	6. Crossing the Line

_A.N: Longish chapter to make up for the wait. ____Oh, and credit for the thrice-locked chest goes to Kvothe. He invented it, actually, Maria just stole the idea_... If you don't get it, don't worry. Enjoy :)  


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**Chapter Six: Crossing the Line  
**

* * *

After fifteen hours of sleeping, I was good as new.

Well, not exactly. When I looked in the mirror, my face was all bloody and yellow bruises showed under the dirt. My short hair was matted with sweat and looked more like a clomp of mud than hair. Underneath it all, I still seemed quite pale, as if I'd just recovered from an illness.

So the first thing I did was take a bath in the stream that ran behind my cottage. Once I had washed all the blood and mud off, I was truly good as new.

I washed my clothes too and slipped them on, glad that they didn't seem torn from yesterday's episode. They dried quickly too, another side-effect of my All-Proof Substance (I really needed to remember how I'd made that). Then I picked some redleaf growing by the river, went back to the cottage and made a paste from it. I applied it over the worst of my bruises – now that I had washed the dirt away they seemed bigger and more painful than they actually felt. At least my hair looked blonde again.

I decided apologizing for missing out on work was the highest on my priorities list for the morning. When I got to the tavern I was pleasantly surprised to find that Carmey had taken my shift, in return for my taking hers two days ago, and so I was in no trouble with the manager. I thanked her profusely, promising to pay her back, but she waved it away saying that we were even.

Next I hurried to the labs. If the beating had taught me a lesson, it was that being separated from my stones for any extended amount of time was a bad idea. I made the trip to the Academy by boat, as usual. It was free for students, and barely lasted ten minutes, the small boat making its way smoothly from Limerick's docks to the island in the middle of the Mirror Lake.

I skipped down, thanked the boatman, and stalked to the labs, barely paying attention to the majestic buildings and huge statues that lined the path. I didn't meet anyone on the way, and it took me a while to remember that today was the first day of the end-of-term holidays. All the better; no one would be around to comment on my bruises or distract me from my work. When I opened the door to the labs I was greeted by the familiar faint smell of antiseptic, and an unusual but comfortable quiet.

My safe was at the far corner of the room, the furthermost left of the row. I took off the string around my neck from which hung two keys, one iron, one bronze. I placed the iron key in the bronze lock and the bronze key in the iron lock, but didn't turn either of them. Spreading my fingers over the safe I murmured a chain. It opened outwards without making a noise.

I was the one who designed that safe. And I was quite proud of it, too.

Inside were my three stones. I picked them up, thumbing the smooth surface thoughtfully, then picked up the green folder lying there as well, careful not to spill anything inside. It was my life's work, and what I'd managed to rescue of my mother's. Diagrams. Studies. Reports. Failed prototypes. Everything related to the Potential Heimeter was there. I immersed myself in the formulas, and when I felt I was in the right state of mind, started sketching again.

A couple of hours had passed when I heard the door to the labs open. I'd been hunched over the papers, my hair covering my face. I risked a peek from between the strands to see it was our dear _friend_ Christian Almer and his ass-kissing cronies.

If I had had a knife at hand, I would have hurled it at him.

As it was, I did the next best thing, which was ignore him royally as he sauntered up to my table, thinking himself owner of the universe. "Hey, Clockwork."

I finished my formula, swept my eyes over the diagram, and started a new one.

"Hey, I'm talking to you." Behind him, his cronies snickered. I counted three of them, two guys and one girl, all dressed in the hideous bright colors nobility were inexplicably fond of.

Almer grabbed my paper and wrenched it out from under me, making me draw a huge, ugly line across my schema. "Let's see…" He held it up to the light. "_Differential curves of Irsha consumption_? What kind of rubbish is this?"

I looked up at him slowly. "Give it back." My voice sounded odd, even to my own ears.

He met my eyes, surprised, and then a malicious smile stretched over his lips. "Oh, _whatever_ happened to your face?" he asked in a mockingly sweet tone. "Had trouble at work?"

"Give. It. Back." I paused. "Now."

I knew what I was feeling. It was that same cold, absolute rage that had gripped me yesterday in the alleyway. It was so icy everything inside me went still, and I knew with complete certainty that, if he didn't give it back in the next five seconds, I was going to jump at his neck and push him into that razor sharp carving wheel behind him. I knew it like I knew my own name.

Again, a look of surprise crossed his features, before the smug smile returned. "Ask me nicely."

"Give it back," I complied calmly. "Please."

"I was thinking something along the lines of kneeling on the ground and begging me for it. You know, to remind you of where you belong."

Behind him, one of his friends shifted uncomfortably. "Christian," he said, nervous but obviously trying to hide it, "look at her _eyes._"

While Almer turned his head towards him, momentarily distracted, I reached out and casually plucked the paper from his hand, as easily as one would pick a fruit from a tree. I set it on the desk in front of me again, staring at the line that ran through it like a scar.

I sort of tuned Almer out for the next few minutes. I expect he made some threats. Asked for his presumably stolen stones again. Mocked me in the most vulgar ways. It was all the same to me. All I saw was the ugly black line dancing in front of my eyes.

As soon as he walked out of the room, I stood up and slowly turned to the equipment cupboard, assessing the glass vials and labeled test tubes. I picked a white powder and dissolved three grams of it in a yellow liquid. I distilled some water, mixed it all three parts to one, then put it over a flame. When it reached a certain temperature I added a pinch of red grains which made it go clear. I'd only seen the recipe once, in a book my mother had expressly forbidden me to read, but my memory had always served me well. My fingers didn't tremble.

When I was done I put the vial and everything else away in my safe. Then I left the Academy, taking one of the small boats back to Limerick. My icy ire slowly became a more normal boiling anger, and then a grim satisfaction as I used the ride to figure out the finer details of my plan.

Insult me? Fine, I could insult back. Send a thug to beat me up? I could deal with it.

But touch my diagrams? The fury reeled inside me, a black thing in my stomach. He had just dug his own grave.

Once we arrived I headed straight to Jumma's wine shop.

It stood at the crossing of the town's busiest streets – I'd made sure he chose a good location before I invested my money in it. It was more a cellar than a shop, really – he did sell wine to individual customers, but the real business lay in supplying all the inns and taverns around town, which were many, since most students of the Academy came from far away and needed lodging. I walked through the front doors as if I owned the place, which technically, I did (alright, just a share of it, but all the same).

Jumma spotted me right away. He was talking to a client next to an open crate, showing him his merchandise. I waited quietly in a corner for him to finish. When he was done with his client he ran towards me and pulled me into a hug.

He was a bear of a man, so the hug nearly crushed my still healing bones. "Maria, my little girl!" he cried excitedly.

"You're crushing me."

"Oh, sorry." He let me go quickly, then frowned upon closer inspection at the bruises on my face. "What happened to you?" his tone had turned from cheerful to concerned and anxious in half a second.

Jumma had always been protective of me. He was the one who'd taken me in, the one who'd raised me, given me a roof and cared for me before I started studying at the Academy. I'd come to think of him as my uncle, my only family. When we came by financial troubles and sometimes could barely afford a meal a day, he refused to throw me out. Even now that I could care for myself I knew I'd be welcome to his table any day.

Seeing him mollified my anger. He was the kindest man I'd ever met. I'd wanted to pay him back for everything, which was why I'd saved money to help him start the business. He had put on weight and his skin had a healthy glow now. His crooked smile seemed brighter. I knew he had a new girlfriend. For once in his life, everything was going well.

It was not my place to douse his happiness. "I tripped with something at the labs and fell. Nothing serious," I waved the issue away. "How's business?"

He was smiling again. "Absolutely great! Better than we'd ever dreamed of. I just sold a whole crate to that gentleman. Do you want your share?"

I shook my head. "Save the money for me. I'll pick it up when I need it." I gave him a shy smile. "Actually, I'm coming as a customer today."

He laughed a great, booming laugh, his belly shaking. "What will it be, then? The finest Kleops wine? The new Strawberry mead?" His eyes suddenly narrowed suspiciously. "It's not for a date, is it?"

It was my turn to laugh. "No, no. I was thinking of gifting it to my boss. He's been kind to me lately." I paused. "He likes strong flavors, none of the _soft water for cowards and priests._ His words, not mine."

Jumma led me to one of the crates, chuckling low. He picked up an old, dark bottle, and held it up to admire it. "Then this is probably what you want. Wine from the sandy deserts of Alabasta. It is so strong you won't be able to taste anything for days afterwards."

_Perfect._ I started rummaging in my purse, but a look from him stopped me. "None of that, girl." I started to protest, but he didn't let me, placing the bottle in my hands and closing my fingers over it. "How can I let you pay after all you have helped me?"

I felt tears coming to my eyes and looked down, embarrassed. "It is you who have helped me, Jumma. I would be nowhere without you."

He gave me a fond smile and a pat on the shoulder. "Nonsense. Now run along. I'm sure you have important things to do."

I left the shop without saying anything else, since I didn't trust my voice. Jumma would always see me as his little girl, no matter how much I had grown. He would always look after me, he would always love me, he would always think of me as the innocent, teary child he picked up from the street.

When you have only one person in the world who loves you, you don't want to disappoint them. And, if he knew what I was planning to use the wine for, Jumma would be very, very disappointed. I decided I'd do everything in my power so he wouldn't find out.

I wiped my face and looked up with determination. I didn't head to the tavern, but returned to the labs instead.

I poured out about a quarter of the wine from the bottle, and was pouring in the liquid from the vial, when I heard a noise outside. I didn't pay it any mind and finished pouring. I screwed the cork on again and got a piece of copper wire from the supply drawers to secure it tightly, then stepped back to admire my work. I'd always been good with my fingers. No one would be able to tell the bottle had been opened.

I heard the noise again and looked up to the window, then froze. Luffy was grinning at me from the other side of the glass, knocking loudly. My stomach flipped, and I quickly stalked to it and opened it, and he fell into the room in a tangle of limbs.

I mentally thanked whoever was up there that it was the first day of holidays and the labs were empty. I pulled him down behind a table anyway so we would be out of sight from the door, just in case. "What are you doing here?" I hissed. "If you're found out they'll execute you!"

He gave me a wide, sheepish smile. "I was just exploring." He stuck his head out above the table and his eyes widened. "Whoa! What _is_ this place?"

I pulled him back down. "The labs, idiot. Of the _Academy_. How did you cross the lake? You can't even swim!"

"I stole a boat."

I slumped my head into my hands. What had I done to deserve this? I considered crying out and giving him away – if I was seen with him, I would undoubtedly be banned – but my pride wouldn't let me. He _had_ saved me from that woman at the alleyway. Abruptly my head snapped up to see him bringing the wine bottle to his lips.

"DON'T!" I was on my feet and had snatched it away from him in a flash. He looked at me blankly. "Did you drink any?"

"No."

I took a deep, calming breath, trying to get my heart to slow down. "Okay, listen. Everything in this room is poisonous. Don't drink, eat, or touch a single flask, unless you want to grow an extra arm, spend a whole week with diarrhoea, or worse. In fact, grab your ears right now."

"What?"

"Grab your ears and don't let go until I tell you to." He did as I said, puzzled, and I breathed a little more easily now that his hands would remain on himself.

We stared at each other silently. What was he doing here? Jesus Christ. What had I done to be stuck babysitting a monkey? How was I going to get him out? After a moment he took a step closer and nudged me with his elbow. "Hey, show me around."

"No," I said, screwing the cork on the bottle for the second time. "We're going back to Limerick right now."

He nudged me again. "Come on. No one will find out. Show me around."

"No," I repeated firmly. Alright. How was I going to get this dunce out of the Academy without anybody noticing him? It was the holidays, but still, there could be students around, catching up on homework or working on their own projects, like me. Why did I even have to help him? I could just leave him here to get caught.

I sighed loudly. Nothing guaranteed that he wouldn't blubber out my name if he met someone, and that would mean a lot of trouble for me. The best thing I could do was get him out of here ASAP and hope he wouldn't try to come back by himself. I looked up to find him sauntering towards the door, and ran up to catch him. "Hey! What are you doing?"

"If you're not going to show me around, I'll just explore on my own."

Oh God. Was he always this frustrating? "Alright. Alright, I'll show you around." I paused. Might as well make the most of it. "But you owe me a favor afterwards."

He gave me a wide smile.


	7. Burning Lake

**Chapter Seven: Burning Lake**

* * *

We explored the labs, he broke many test tubes, and I was surprised to find secret cupboards I hadn't known about before.

We strolled through the botanical gardens and I had to stop him from ingesting a leaf of _Remura,_ which would have killed him in seconds, and order him to grab his ears again. He was entranced with the smell of the silver fern which he assured made him think of meat. He startled when the Helicopter Plant spun on itself at his touch, retracting back into a seed in an instant, as if it were shy. I wasn't a botanist, but his reactions made me proud in a strange way. I always thought that what we had here at the Academy could amaze anyone; it was nice to see that even Luffy, who'd have undoubtedly traveled a lot, wasn't immune to it.

We went to the Library, but he wasn't impressed by the number of books and demanded we left after approximately five seconds. We went to the Astronomy room, which he liked best of all. He thought the planets hanging from the domed ceiling made great swings and started flying around the room, swinging from one to the next, cackling maniacally like the monkey he was. It took all my persuasion, bribery and finally threatening skills to get him down.

How did I manage to hide him from everyone else? I didn't. I merely gave him my cloak, a long, dark cloak which covered him to his knees and had a hood. It didn't cover his hat, and he refused to part with it, but it was enough to hide his face in shadow and, though it drew suspicious glances, the few people we came across didn't try to stop us.

I think I only managed to tear him away from the Academy because he was hungry. We made our trip by boat back to Limerick when the sun was already setting. The golden and red of the sky reflected on the Mirror Lake, making it seem as if our boat was floating in the midst of a breathtaking sea of fire. Luffy looked at it for a moment, stood up, spread out his arms and laughed, like an earthquake shaking his entire body. I had never heard a laugh so wild and carefree before, nor have I since.

"Come to the sea with me," he said, turning towards me, and though I couldn't see his face since the burning lake was behind him, I could hear the wide grin in his voice. "This place is nice, but there are many things out there that your Academy doesn't have. The sea is exciting adventure just waiting to happen, amazing islands you have never even dreamed of. Reading about it in a book is nothing compared to seeing it with your own eyes."

I felt odd looking at Straw Hat then, his face still in shadow, the cloak flapping around his shoulders, the sky and the water tainted a blood red behind him. It was as if the sound of his voice muffled everything around us, as if the world was hanging from his breath. "I can't," I replied, my mouth dry. "I have my research."

He grinned wider, eyes dancing. "I have seen dragons," he continued. "I have rescued Kings. I have met giants. I have tamed the scariest monsters in the Grand Line. I have been to an island in the sky, where I have fought God, and won. I have gone back in time, escaped prisons, and found treasures way beyond your wildest imaginings." His grin widened even more, showing all his teeth. "Come to the sea with me."

In that moment he looked like... it's difficult to describe. He looked like danger and excitement. Like a sharp cliff and a drawn blade and a dark shadow all into one. But he also looked like fearlessness, like he wasn't afraid of any of those things.

He looked like a man who had stared Death in the face and laughed.

My heart was pounding hard, my palms sweaty, my eyes wide. I could feel myself being pulled towards him inevitably, the way the moon pulls the tides. If you have never met Straw Hat Luffy, I don't expect you to understand it.

Only my hand accidentally brushing my stone purse stopped me. I looked down, frowning. In the space of one heartbeat I was an Alchemist, and my mind was my own again, and that was enough for the magic to break. "I can't," I repeated, with more conviction this time, annoyed at myself for the slip in my control. "I have to finish my Potential Heimeter."

His arms dropped, the sun finished setting, and I could see his face again, pouting childishly. "You're no fun," he whined, and jumped out of the boat, running to the nearest tavern. I followed him, my legs feeling a little shaky.

So this was a pirate.

* * *

We talked over a meal big enough for twelve people. It was rather me doing the talking, and Luffy wolfing down everything within his reach as if he hadn't eaten in weeks.

"So," I said, as he swallowed a plate of beef whole. And when I say whole, I mean whole, the plate included. "Since I showed you around, you owe me a favor."

He nodded as he ate. "Msh guesh that's fair."

I brought out the wine bottle from underneath the table and set it between us. "I need you to help me break into Almer's mansion and put this in his room."

He paused eating momentarily. "Isn't that the coward guy? Why do you want to give him a gift?"

"It's not a gift. It's poison. Nothing that will kill him, mind you." I grinned. "It just might have some troublesome effects for a while."

"That's cowardly. Just punch him."

We eyed each other across the table seriously. "He started it," I said slowly. "And you owe me. And, there's plenty of treasure in that mansion." Like I hoped, his eyes lit up at the mention of treasure, and any qualms he might have had were blown out of his mind. I smiled. "Besides, the security there is the tightest in the whole island. Won't it be fun trying to break in?"

"Yeah! Okay, I'll help you!" He abruptly stood up, grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the restaurant.

I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. He'd agreed way too easily. "Hey, Luffy... We haven't paid."

He grinned back at me, then his eyes widened and he started running. "RUN!" he laughed, as, behind us, the owner emerged and started chasing, waving a piece of wood around and shouting insults.

We managed to lose him in the end, stopping behind a clothes shop to catch our breath. I was feeling guilty until I decided that _I_ hadn't technically stolen anything, since _I_ hadn't been the one eating. If anybody should be suffering a beating from their conscience, it was Straw Hat.

My eyes ran over the costumes displayed on the shop, and suddenly I had an idea. "Hey, Luffy."

"What?" He'd climbed up on the roof of the building and was looking around with a hand over his eyes.

"What are you doing?" I asked, momentarily amused.

"Checking to see that the old guy from the tavern isn't following us."

I rolled my eyes. "You realize you're very easy to spot up there, don't you?"

"But I can't see him from the street."

Two of my stones clicked together inside my purse. I uttered a chain and he fell, landing face-first on the ground in front of me. I ignored his moans of pain and turned to face the shop again. "Listen. We're not going to _invade_ the mansion, alright? We're going to _infiltrate_ it. With disguises."

I somehow got him to think that it was a very elaborate ninja strategy and that simply barging in through the front door was not cool. He surprisingly agreed with this idea, though he kept making ninja poses in his waiter's costume which made him look extremely stupid. I mean, more stupid than usual.

There were many fences surrounding the Almer mansion. They had Alchemy wards set up, so I couldn't simply fly us over them using my stones. Perhaps, with enough time, I could have disabled the wards, but the agents in the wine got easily destroyed by high temperatures, and the night was warm. I needed to get Almer to drink it before they all denaturalised. Luffy offered to propel us, but after I got him to admit he couldn't really control where we landed, not when he was carrying someone else, we agreed that the best way was to stick to our original plan and make use of the disguises.

The first two fences we passed more easily than I'd expected. My maid uniform showed quite a bit of cleavage, and after I made dew eyes and batted my eyelashes a bit the guards let us through without many questions. The third fence, however, was more like a wall, made of solid stone, and the guards at the gates looked much more disciplined and professional. I knew instantly we wouldn't fool them.

"Alright," I said to Luffy in a whisper. "I can't use my Alchemy, so you're going to have to take care of them. Remember, ninja-style. Don't make any noise at all."

It was, of course, useless. He made as much of a racket as he possibly could have. I slapped my head into my hand and groaned. Whatever made me think that relying on this guy was a good idea? Luckily, it was over quickly, and it didn't look like any of them had time to alert the mansion by den-den mushi. But still, maybe someone inside had heard us...

My palms were sweaty again. I had never really stopped to consider what would happen if we were caught. Maybe Luffy could get us out – that bounty had to mean something – but if Almer realized I'd been the one to poison his wine, I was dead.

"Hey, I'm done," Luffy called. "What now?"

I considered turning back, but we were too far in already. I glanced anxiously towards the mansion. Still no movement. Swallowing, I replied, "We go in. As if we were servants, okay? And let me do all the talking."

I'd originally planned to get into Almer's room from his window, but the mansion was full of windows, and there was no way to guess which was the right one. Besides, there were too many guards patrolling for us to check each of them. And if Luffy tried to take them out, those inside would hear. So I quickly ushered him in through a back door from which I'd seen other servants come out before.

It was, apparently, the kitchen back entrance. And it wasn't empty. I stood frozen for a couple of seconds like a deer in the headlights, watching the bustling cooks and maids prepare dinner. We would be caught. We would be caught. We would be…

"What are you doing there standing like a moron?" Somebody slammed a tray into my hands. "Go take that up to Christian's rooms. He'll finish his sword practice soon and he'll want to have dinner."

My mind kicked into action. "Sorry," I replied, giving the fat woman a timid smile. "I'm new. I don't remember where his rooms are."

"Hum." She looked me up and down, assessing my outfit, and her eyes stopped at the wine bottle peeking from the bag at my side. "What's that?"

"Oh." I juggled the tray on one hand and brought it out to show her. "Somebody asked me to get it from the cellar. I think it was meant to go with his dinner, too."

She nodded approvingly. "Alright. Main hall, left staircase, second corridor, first door on the right are his quarters. Hurry up."

I thanked her and smiled. I turned to ask Luffy to accompany me, but he wasn't there anymore. My heart started beating loudly. I looked around for him, and found him being yelled at by one of the cooks. Shit. How did I get him out of there?

"What are you waiting for?" the woman frowned. "Go."

I shifted nervously. "Sorry. I spaced out." Luffy would have to take care of himself. I left the kitchen and followed the woman's directions through corridors lined with fancy furniture and statues that rivaled in beauty those at the Academy. The curtains on the windows were embedded with pearls. I could have discretely pulled one of those pearls out, and it would have paid my tuition for a whole year, but I didn't. I wasn't a thief.

Finally I arrived to my destination, which apparently was an ornate red door with a silver knob the shape of a lion. I pushed on it, praying it wasn't locked, but of course it was. I was sweating in rivulets now. _He'll finish his practice soon._

A passing manservant spotted me. "What are you doing?"

I smiled nervously, waving my full hands, as if that were the reason I couldn't open the door. He smiled back. He was actually quite handsome. "Oh, I see. Let me help." He got out a key and held the door open for me with an exaggerated movement. "My lady," he invited, a twinkle in his eye.

I smiled more honestly this time. "Thanks." I stood still, looking around the room for a moment. There was no bed, just lots of fancy furniture, a window, and a door at the other side of the room. I was confused. This was like a dining-room, not a bedroom, but then I realized that Christian's quarters could have more than one room.

I set the tray and the wine on the long, dark wooden table and started arranging silverware, not like I had any idea of what I was doing. The manservant watched me for a few seconds in silence before someone from the outside called him and he left. I breathed out, relieved. I checked that the bottle didn't seem suspicious in any way, then stepped back, and looked around the room once more.

There was an ornate cupboard, a mirror, and various other pieces of furniture. I considered doing some mischief while I was here, but truly, now that I had completed my task I all I wanted was to get out as soon as possible. I was turning towards the door when I heard voices in the corridor.

_A _voice.

_Almer's_ voice.


	8. We'll Meet on the Water

**Chapter Eight: We'll Meet on the Water  
**

* * *

I started to panic. If he found me here, he'd have me hanged. In three quick steps I crossed the room and closed the door, clicking the lock into place. It would give me a couple extra seconds to think.

I looked around. Maybe I could hide behind that cupboard – no, too small. The curtain? I could hear the voice getting closer, an angry voice shouting orders. Shit. A tap on the window caught my attention, and my neck whipped around so fast I swear I heard it cracking. Straw Hat was outside, smiling and waving like an idiot.

I stalked over and fumbled with the lock. Behind me, someone else fumbled with the lock on the red door. Finally I got the window open, and the warm night air swept through the room, ruffling my hair. In one smooth movement Luffy pulled me out, holding me to his chest with one arm. He retracted his other arm – he'd been hanging from another window two floors above us – and we rose up in the air just as the door of the room burst open.

"And I want it done by tomorrow morning!" I heard Almer shout to whoever he'd been talking to.

I looked up at Luffy, my heart beating erratically. Had Almer seen us? He smiled childishly at me and lowered us gently back on the top of the window frame. I clung to his shirt until I felt the wood under my feet.

Inside, Almer was mumbling to himself. "Can't even do one thing properly." He paused, stayed still for a moment, and started stalking towards the open window. The blood rushed to my ears. If it wasn't for the wards, I could have made both of us invisible, but for now all I could do was hold my breath and pray to God Almer wouldn't lean out.

He did lean out. The top of his head was merely inches under my foot. I could have stepped on him if I wanted to. My heart was pounding so loudly I thought he'd be able to hear it. But he didn't look up, merely turned his head left and right, and when he didn't spot anything he muttered something under his breath and closed the window.

I sighed quietly, all the tension leaving me in a great whoosh.

Luffy was grinning. "Sheesh," he whispered, chuckling silently. "Close one."

"We have to make sure he drinks it." I carefully crouched on the window frame, then scaled down the side of it; Luffy scaled the other side, and we peeked inside. Luckily, I'd arranged the tray so that Almer was seating with his back to the window, so he couldn't see us. I saw him eat a forkful of his plate, grab the bottle and take a long swallow, without bothering to pour it on his glass. His shoulders stiffened for a moment. I gulped. I thought the taste would be strong enough to disguise the poison… After a tense moment, he tilted his head back more and kept drinking. My fingers tingled with anticipation.

Then he abruptly stood up in a clatter, smashed the bottle on the floor, and started screaming at the top of his lungs. Luffy glanced at me from across the window, alarmed. "Did he find out?"

I shook my head, smiling. "I don't think so. Perhaps the wine was too strong for him."

Inside the room, Almer was clutching at his throat. "AAAAH…ALL OVER ME! THEY'RE ALL OVER ME!" He started hitting at his arms and legs and rolling around on the floor, scratching his face like a madman, as if he was trying to claw his own eyes out. "GET THEM OFF ME!" The screaming was raw and frightening, almost primal.

"What was in that mystery potion?" Luffy whispered, slightly taken aback.

I smiled wider. "I told you, you could grow an extra arm… Have diarrhea for a week… Or worse."

"AHHH! GET THEM OFF ME!" By now, his cries had alerted the servants, who burst into the room, frantic. As much as I would enjoy watching Almer writhe in agony for a bit longer, I knew it was just a matter of seconds before one of them opened the window.

"Can you get us out?"

Luffy nodded, stretched one of his arms towards me, grabbing me around the waist, the other to the stone wall surrounding the mansion, and propelled us towards the sky.

* * *

We ended up far away from Limerick, lying on a patch of moist grass, looking up at the thousand stars above us. Luffy had thrown his butler uniform away and was wearing his red vest again, lounging on his back with his fingers interlocked under his head. I was next to him, twirling one of my short strands around my finger, thinking about what we'd just done. We had extended my cloak beneath us, so it was quite comfortable, actually.

I was feeling quite smug at the moment. That look of utter horror and panic in Almer's face had tasted so sweet. Until the poison left his system, he would be permanently seeing atrocious and horrifying hallucinations that would drive any normal person mad. Unfortunately, he had the sharp, unshakable mind of an Alchemist, so he would eventually recover his sanity, but still, he'd be living in his own personal Hell for a few days.

It was nice to get my revenge, finally.

I glanced at Luffy out of the corner of my eye, wondering for the tenth time what he was doing here. Where was his crew? Apart from that first day at the tavern, I hadn't seen them at all. I was surprised to see his face turned towards me, eyes dark in the night. I didn't know what to do, so I just stared back.

"You were right about the treasure," he said after a silence. "There was heaps."

"Did you grab any?"

"I didn't have time. But I ate lots of meat."

Oh. Pity. Half the reason I had brought him along was that I'd been hoping he'd pillage Almer's mansion. He was a pirate, after all.

He was still staring at me, in that way he had when we first met. It felt like he was measuring me for something. After a few seconds, he extended a hand and started poking my side. "My ship sets sail tomorrow. Come with us."

"No."

His pokes grew insistent. "Be part of my crew."

"No."

"Why not?" he asked, propping up on his elbow. His eyebrows were furrowed, his expression genuinely confounded, as if he couldn't fathom why anybody wouldn't want to run off to the sea with him and be a pirate. "You already gave that stupid rich guy what he deserved. You're fun. You break into places. You tell good stories. I want you on my crew."

It must be so easy being him, I thought. To have such a simple mind. You were hungry? You ate. You wanted something? You took it. You hated someone? You punched them in the face. He was so innocent, so carefree. You had to have a special kind of strength to think like that. "I have a dream, Luffy," I said, turning back to the stars. "One I can't accomplish if I'm not in the Academy."

"Oh." He paused. "I see."

I was surprised. "You do?"

"Yeah. You have a dream." He said it as if that explained everything.

I don't know why, but I felt like I had to elaborate. Give him a reason. "I have to make that Potential Heimeter. It was what my mother wanted to make. She wanted to find the third stone."

"The mystery one that will let you rule over everything?"

I smiled wryly. "Yes. She was convinced it existed, though everybody told her otherwise." I didn't tell him what I really suspected – that she'd seen it, even touched it. That she'd felt its power. My mother was a rational person, she wouldn't have dedicated her life to chasing a legend. She must have been completely, absolutely certain of its existence, and that could only be explained if she'd seen it with her own eyes.

He didn't say anything for a while. The silence filled with the noise of crickets and wind combing through the grass. Then, out of nowhere, "I'm going to be King of the Pirates."

"Oh. Well, good luck." Maybe it was the odd atmosphere, but I wasn't surprised. He'd said it without an ounce of hesitation, as if it were already set in stone, and, somehow, I believed him. I'd seen what he could do. I'd felt the pull of his voice when we were on the Mirror Lake.

"You know," he added, "just a stupid stone won't let you rule over the King of the Pirates."

I turned to face him again. He was still looking intently at me, eyes shining with the reflections of the stars. My heart did a funny thing right there and I looked away quickly. "I'm not going to _use_ it," I found myself saying. "I just want to _find_ it."

His lips stretched into a slow, satisfied smile, as if he'd just figured something out. "Ah, now I get it." He got up and stretched, facing away from me, his dark figure cut against the sky. "Well, once you're done building your detector thingy, you'll have to set sail, won't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, that stone is probably not on this island, right? You'll have to leave to go look for it."

I was quiet. I hadn't given much consideration to what I would do after completing the Heimeter. Now that I thought about it, I had no idea _why_ my mother had been so bent on chasing the third stone. Had she wanted to use it? Or to destroy it? Whatever the case, Luffy was right. I would have to leave eventually. "I suppose," I said slowly, "we'll meet on the water sometime."

He grinned at me. My heart skipped again. "Of course." And he started walking away without one more word of goodbye.

I sat up, watching as his shape blended in the night until he was just a dark smudge. I watched as even the smudge disappeared, leaving me more alone than I'd felt in years. But I didn't call out. I didn't shout _thank you._ I didn't run after him. I merely sat still and stared, heart tugging inexplicably, as he dissolved into darkness.

He didn't turn around either. He didn't say goodbye. I understood it as it was: a promise that we would meet again.

* * *

_A.N: Please review? :)  
_


	9. Ring of Clay

_A.N: Thanks for the reviews you guys! You're awesome!_

* * *

**Chapter Nine: Ring of Clay**

* * *

The next day I awoke on the right side of the bed.

As I brushed my short hair in front of the mirror, I just knew that today was going to be a great day. My bruises were healing nicely. The thought of Almer spending the whole night thrashing around trying to get imaginary creepers off him had me in one of my best moods. It was, also, the payment deadline for the new term's tuition fees, and he would miss it, which meant that he'd have to pay an extraordinary amount of money for a late application.

I had a quick breakfast of the fruit stocked in my little kitchen – some bits of apple were rotten, but I simply cut them off and ate the rest. I didn't understand why the merchants threw away such perfectly good apples when they could still be mostly eaten, or pressed into cider. What a waste.

As soon as I finished breakfast I went to the Academy to pay my tuition. The boat ride in the Mirror Lake reminded me of the day before, and I shook my head to clear away the images, unsuccessfully. Luffy and his crew would be getting ready to set sail. They would have nice weather. I tried not to think about it.

Because my test results from last term had been the best in the whole Academy, and I had progressed quite far on my research, my tuition was set fortunately low. Still, I was left with only five thousand Beris of the eighteen thousand I'd had just three days ago, and, though it wasn't the most dire situation I'd found myself in, it wasn't enough to make me feel comfortable either. Perhaps I ought to visit Jumma and ask him for my shares, no matter how small they were.

Once everything was squared up with the Academy's bank books I went to the labs. My stones were carved and I had no poison to make, so I spent the whole morning revising my notes for the Heimeter, like yesterday before Almer interrupted.

I didn't realize how much time had passed until my stomach growled loudly. I looked around, surprised at the change in the light through the windows and how many people there were in the lab. It appeared that, though it was still the holidays, they had decided to squeeze in a couple hours of work. I'd been too focused to hear any of them come in.

I sighed, put the green folder in my locker, bolted it three times with the set of keys and a muttered chain. As I was finishing I heard whispers about Christian Almer going crazy, literally crawling up walls in the middle of the night, and smiled. Then I went back to my table and cleaned everything else up. And, as I had nothing better to do, started making a batch of heat rods, which I then stuffed in the pockets of my coat.

* * *

The mystery of Almer's stolen stones was cleared up the day after the pirates left. The culprit of it all was Will.

Will was the street urchin I had once saved from a couple of thugs. He knew Limerick's backstreets like his own pockets, hence he was my primary source of information regarding the rumors of the city. Despite my attempts to civilize him, he was still a wild, scared animal, and had seen too many horrible things to ever be a normal member of society again. I wanted to help him, but he had the pride of the extremely poor. When one has nothing else to cling to but their pride, it makes it very difficult to force them to let go.

But Will was a smart kid, too. He had survived the streets for a long time, until he blended into that world and made it his home. He had recently entered the service of a sketchy Lord. I knew better than to ask at this point.

But if anybody had any idea of who had stolen Almer's stones, it would be him.

"Sure ah' know," he said when I went to see him at the dumping ground he called his house. He shared it with other kids dressed in rags running around, each to their own thing. They had gotten used to seeing me here - none of them tried to stab me or rob me, like they had the first few times I came to visit. "Ah' did."

I just stared at him for a second.

He shrugged, not looking at me. He was mending a hole in his shoe with needle and thread. "What? Any'un stupid 'nuff to walk the ba'ways with fancy clothes on deserves t'be nicked. An' sides, he's a fuckin' sunnovabitch. Ah' hate him."

I grabbed him by the shoulders. "He's an Alchemist, Will! He could have killed you!"

Will grinned. "But ah' got good fingers. He didn't notice." He wriggled the fingers of his left hand in front of my face, and then slowly brought up his right, closed into a fist. He opened it slowly, revealing one of my heat rods inside, and grinned charmingly at me.

I snatched it off him and put it back in my pocket, sighing. The whole episode with Almer had started because of _Will._ I didn't know if I wanted to congratulate or throttle him for what he had done. "Stealing is wrong," I said tiredly, knowing it was useless.

He stared at me like I had grown an extra head.

I sighed again. "Who did you sell them to?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Some orange-haired lady. She thought they were pretty. Paid a lot for them, too."

And on top of it all, he sold them to someone who was _not_ an Alchemist. I almost preferred Almer to have them - almost. At least he would have used them for something other than decoration.

Despite my frustration with him, I discreetly slid an apple into his pocket on my way out. Who knew how many vitamins the kid was actually getting.

* * *

That was one mystery solved, at least. And, since I was now absolutely worry-free, the next few days were the happiest in a long time for me.

Almer didn't show up, and there were rumors that the doctors had locked him up in his room because they thought he'd gone completely mad. I'd managed to fatten up my savings after long nights at the tavern. In Dueling I beat the best two students of my class - together.

But the prize of it all was when, one afternoon, Tutor Rhiza called me to her office.

I knocked on the door and cleared my throat, wondering what she wanted. She was the one who taught our Dueling class – so it most likely had to do with my victory that morning. I racked my brain for something I could have done wrong, but found no possible explanation. I'd used minimal energy. My execution had been flawless. I hadn't physically harmed either of my opponents.

An icy thought occurred to me. Had she found out about the wine?

Rhiza was a short, gentle old woman. Sometimes, if you looked at her from the corner of your eyes, her legs seemed to shimmer. I suspected she had a drop of Mermaid blood in her, but had never asked her about it. She was always smiling and never raised her voice, so my nervousness doubled when I opened the door and saw her sitting seriously behind her desk, fingers interwoven. The creases on her skin were smoothed out, not a hint of laughter on her expression. "Maria Clockwork," she greeted formally, making a gesture with a thin arm. "Sit."

I sat rigidly, swallowing past the lump in my throat. I was already thinking of excuses in my head, but I obviously had no alibis. Fiery Hell. How was I going to get out of this mess?

"Many of your peers are amazed at what you did today," she started gravely. Ah. So she did want to talk about the Duel. My shoulders relaxed. "I didn't know you could manage six chains. You have never shown us that before."

I didn't reply. Of course I'd never used all six, since before today she had never made me fight two people at once. I hadn't had the need for it. The only lone Alchemist who could have forced me to reveal my full skill was Almer, and Rhiza had never pitted us against each other because she knew things could turn ugly. Namely for me, since he was the one with so much Irsha it was nearly obscene.

"And that second shield underneath the first was a clever idea," she continued. I remained silent. "But I want to talk about the three-way chaining you did at the beginning. How did you learn that?"

I shrugged, dismissing it. "Books."

Her face turned somber. She was a normally gentle woman, so it was doubly frightening. I tensed again. Perhaps I'd been too hasty to think myself in the clear. "Books," she repeated. "Those kinds of books are not for students to read. And even if you had managed to get your hands on them, I find it unbelievable that you learned such complex Chaining on your own."

I looked down, trying to seem as embarrassed as possible. "No one taught me."

She was silent for a long time. "And how did you break Thorn's shield? Energy calculations don't add up."

I looked up to lock eyes with her for a second. "I can see links, Tutor Rhiza," I said matter-of-factually. "Weak links and strong links in the weaving of a Chain."

She nodded. "I've been suspecting it for a long time. It is a rare and wonderful gift to have." There was another silence. Sometimes, Rhiza said more with silences than she did with words, but I'd never had the patience to decipher them. I could only wait nervously for her to continue. "Well, I'm going to ask you to refrain from using three-ways from here on. It is not something your peers should see." She paused again. "That said, I am overwhelmed myself. Six simultaneous chains is not a small achievement. I would have trouble thinking of five people in this Academy who could manage it, and that's including the teachers."

I looked up and relaxed completely. She was smiling now, a full, slightly crooked grin, showing a couple of her missing teeth. When she saw my expression she even chuckled. "Stones and shells, child, what did you think I called you here for?"

I smiled sheepishly. "To be honest, Tutor Rhiza, I thought I might be in trouble."

"Have you done something you might get in trouble for?"

I smiled wider. "Not that I could think of," I lied, "which was why I was worried."

She reached across her desk and her wrinkled hand patted mine in a familiar gesture that caught me off-guard. "You are one of my best students," she said fondly, then shook her head. "Oh, who am I kidding? You are the best student I've had in ten years. And you have never caused us any trouble." Her face abruptly turned serious again, and, with it, the whole atmosphere of the room changed, like our friendly banter hadn't happened. She retracted her hand and left a small clay ring on the table between us.

I just stared.

"I, Rhiza Mullivan, Alchemist of the fifth ring, acknowledge student Maria Clockwork to have perfected her Chaining skill and achieved full control of the First Principle," she sentenced. It sounded solemn and formal, like she was reciting from a book. To me it was like she had suddenly started speaking a foreign language; I had no idea what the First Principle was. "I present her with this ring as recognition of her success and hope that she further her training as an Alchemist with noble purposes."

She took my hand, smoothly pricking my thumb with a pin - I jerked, but her hold was tight - and letting a single, red drop of blood fall on the ring. The clay absorbed it avidly and became black as night. Then she gave me back my hand. And, since I still didn't do anything, she added gently, "Go on, girl. It's yours."

"Only full Alchemists are allowed to wear rings," I said automatically, still not quite understanding what was happening.

She rolled her eyes and snorted. I nearly jumped out of my chair. I had never seen Rhiza _snort._ "Come on, that title is overrated. You have proven to have ten times the talent of a lot of the useless morons who have already graduated. No one is going to object to you wearing it."

I could think of one jealous little rich bastard who might, but took the ring anyway, turning it around to examine it. At first glance there was nothing special about it (save that it had just drank my blood like a thirsty vampire), but I soon spotted the small rune engraved in it like a design. I'd heard of rings granting Alchemists special power, but I'd never really believed it. "What does it do?"

Rhiza beamed at me. "That, my young student, is for you to find out."

I slid it on the middle finger of my left hand, expecting to feel... I don't know. Nothing so dramatic as a bolt of lightning, but at least a warm tingle. There was nothing of the sort - another puzzle for me to figure out, then. I felt my own lips quirk up in a smirk. I had always loved puzzles.

My eyes slid to Rhiza's hand, which was full with five rings, one on each finger. It was no small honor what she'd granted me.

Her eyes crinkled. "Congratulations, Maria Clockwork. You are finally an Alchemist."

* * *

Straw Hat Luffy had stepped in and out of my life like a dream, like a hurricane. He had plucked me out of my routine and opened the door to a whole new realm of possibilities. I remembered the taste of adventure clinging to him, the danger of his eyes, and a new, exciting feeling urged me to complete my research.

I remembered the islands he talked about, the amazing things he'd seen, and now each time I looked towards the sea I could feel the magnetic pull of it in my blood. I had a new goal, a dream beyond simply making the Potential Heimeter. And I also had the humming sensation that I was coming closer and closer to it with each new formula and corrected diagram.

Thanks to Luffy, I had realized that the world was larger beyond my Academy walls. Without knowing it, he had awakened in me the desire to discover it.

Yes, everything was looking up.

Until the day Almer came back and ruined it all.


	10. Punch Him in the Face

**Chapter Ten: Punch Him in the Face  
**

* * *

I suppose I'd been expecting it. Almer was no idiot, and I _had_ been seen at his mansion carrying a poisoned wine bottle around. He would question the household servants, put two and two together, and I would be dead.

But he couldn't accuse me officially. I knew how to choose my poisons - his recent episodes of madness would leave people questioning his sanity for a long time. Any accusation he'd make would be dismissed as blabberings of a psychopath. Besides, it wasn't like he had tangible proof either. It didn't help his case that, in the late stages of the poisoning, he had cried out my name half a dozen times, no doubt swearing to behead me and use my skull as a fish bowl. I received this latest piece of gossip from my lab mates with a certain dark amusement.

That day I woke up to a dense mist covering the landscape, the kind of fog that rolled over the ground like clouds, making the shapes of objects seem no more than blurry ghosts. I wrapped my coat tighter around my shoulders to ward off the chill of dawn, and reluctantly used my stones to create a soft glowing light that chased the uncertainty a couple of steps away.

I always arrived early at the Academy and was usually the first in the labs, so I was surprised when I passed the window and saw someone inside, intently hunched over my usual table. I moved closer, curious. Imagine my dismay when I found it was Almer himself, poking what looked like glass shards with a scalpel.

As in, glass shards of a shattered wine bottle.

I kept my breathing calm and murmured a chain so the mist rolled over me, hiding me from his sight, and took another step forwards.

His skin was an unhealthy shade of grey, his face worn and thin. His blue eyes were sunken and dark, and his hair was stuck to his face with sweat. His usually crisp clothes were wrinkled and dirty. He looked nothing like the proud noble that sauntered the streets of Limerick like he owned them, staring at the world as if it had all been made for the sole purpose of serving him. It was pitiful, in a way.

And yet I did not feel the slightest bit of remorse. I'd looked worse the morning after his thug beat me up.

As I watched he used tweezers to pick up a piece of the glass and drop it in a beaker containing a clear substance, which instantly turned light purple. Then he checked the book open besides him, frowned, shook his head slightly and turned the page. With a sense of dread I recognized it as the _Mollery,_ the catalog of poisons used by the Medicine students. His eyes scanned the new page, stopped, started the page again, and a slow, frightening smile stretched over his cracked lips. I backed away from the window.

The rest of the morning went by uneventfully. I was surprisingly calm, given that I knew he'd most likely identified the poison and come to all the right conclusions. I felt safe in my assumption that no one would take him seriously.

Oh, how naive I was.

* * *

I should have started to realize the gravity of the situation when I went back to Limerick for dinner and decided to stop by Frell's Alchemy shop. I was hoping to sell her some of my heat rods. As usual, when I opened the door the bells above it jingled and she looked up at me from her seat by the cashier. But she wasn't wearing her friendly smile. Instead, her expression was furtive, almost scared, and she did not speak a word.

Still, I went up to her and grinned. "Hello, Frell."

She looked down and to the side. "Hello."

I started rummaging through my pockets. "I was wondering if you were interested in…"

"No," she cut me off.

"But you know I'm good at making heat rods. They're the best quality…"

She shook her head again.

I paused, puzzled. What was wrong with her? Then my expression smoothed out when I realized the answer. "Ah." I looked around, seeing the shop under a new light now, then back at her. "Frell," I said slowly, measuring my words. "How much does one of these cost?" I gestured to a random globe lamp, a plain old item that had been bought and sold since the appearance of coin and had never been priced above five hundred Beris.

"Not for sale," she replied rigidly, still not meeting my eyes. The real meaning was implied: Not for sale _for you._ "The shop is closing, so I would ask you to leave."

It was nonsense, of course. Frell never closed before the moon was out. Still, I headed towards the door, pausing to look back one last time. "Almer, wasn't it." I didn't phrase it as a question.

She nodded almost imperceptibly.

"I'm sorry for causing you trouble." And I left.

Still, I thought to myself as I strolled through the streets, mixing with the evening crowd, it wasn't so bad as that. Admittedly, not being able to get my supplies in town would inconvenience my research, but it wasn't like hers was the only shop in the whole island. I could make a trip to Monnet once a week, and, while the roads were winding and unpleasant, it wouldn't mean anything more tragic than losing a few hours of work. If this was the full extent of Almer's wrath, I could live with it.

I made my way to the tavern I worked at, hoping to extract a free meal from my manager. Though he grumbled a lot, he had gotten attached to us waitresses and usually gave in after a couple of minutes of coaxing. I headed towards the back entrance, but Carmey wrenched the small wooden door open before I could touch the handle, and pushed me insistently towards the street. "Wha–" I stammered, but she cut me off.

"You can't go in there." She was whispering and wringing her hands in front of herself nervously.

"Why not?"

"There –" she swallowed, and blurted the rest out so quickly I had to ask her to repeat.

"There were two thugs here this morning, bullying Olm and threatening to trash the place if he didn't fire you."

"And?" I prompted, the sense of dread intensifying in my chest.

She looked down guiltily.

I swore and turned around, my face a storm. Olm's was my most important source of income. No matter how mad he was, Almer couldn't have me thrown out of my _job_! That was a new low, even for him.

I stalked towards the docks, furious. It was high time this little conflict of ours was resolved. I would confront Almer once and for all. I fumed during the whole boat ride to the Academy, snapping directions to the boatman when he got lost in the fog. The bastard had done it this time. My job. How did he suppose I was going to live?

I was just passing under the entrance gates when a voice called "Hey!"

I ignored it and kept walking, hell-bent on getting to the labs. "Hey! Maria Clockwork!" It was one of the guards at the gate, running after me.

"What?" I snarled, whirling around.

To my extreme irritation, he wasn't the least bit taken aback. "I have been instructed to deny your entrance into the Academy until further orders."

I assessed him incredulously. I didn't know him. He looked quite young, probably new to the job. His partner was still standing by the gate, staring at us. "I'm a student here," I said slowly. "I pass under this gate every day. I was here just this morning."

His lips thinned. "All the same, my instructions are to deny you entry."

Alright. I could get that intimidating shopkeepers and innkeepers was not beyond his range of possibilities. But how the _hell_ had Almer managed to get Academy guards to listen to him? He would have had to grease up the whole chain of command! Just how much money was he willing to spend in order to get back at me?

I felt my eyes instantly going cold and slowly brought up my left hand, spreading my fingers, showing him the black clay ring Rhiza had given me. "I am an Alchemist," I said slowly. "And you do not have the authority to stop me, soldier." And I clenched my hand into a fist.

He did look surprised this time. Apparently no one had informed him of my latest achievement. To give him credit, he regained his composure quickly enough. "I will have to check the authenticity of that ring."

"These will vouch for its authenticity," I said lowly, clicking two of my stones together in my other hand. He looked down at it and frowned, no doubt weighting the prospect of a mild scolding from his boss against my absolute wrath, and slowly brought his eyes back to my face. After a tense moment, I turned around and kept walking. He didn't call out to me again.

But, by now, I was truly and honestly terrified. I had underestimated that bloody son of a whore. If he had influence in the Academy itself, he could seriously ruin my entire life.

The first thing I did was head for the labs. Partly because it was the last place I had seen Almer in, and partly because I felt the irrational need to check that my green folder was alright. But when I passed the reception desk, I was, once again, stopped. "Maria," the receptionist called, "you can't go in." And he murmured a chain that shut the door in my face.

I rounded up on him, veins pulsating with liquid anger and adrenalin. "And why not?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Orders from above." His name was Kevin. I had known him since my first year. He was a student, like me, although he was older, nearly ready to graduate.

"Come on," I ground out. "You can't be serious."

He shrugged again. "Just chill, girl. I'm sure it's all a mistake. But I have to stop you for now. It's my job."

I am ashamed to admit I did consider taking him out right then and there. I could have done it quickly, mind you, without spending much Irsha or making too much noise. He must have seen something in my eyes, because he pushed his chair back a fraction and I saw his hands dive into his pockets. "Chill," he repeated, only this time it sounded more like a warning.

I breathed out. "Can't you tell me why?"

"Sorry. 'Don't let Maria through.' That was all I got." He grinned sheepishly. "You must have pissed the Tutors off majorly. What did you do?"

I shook my head. This had nothing to do with the Tutors. Almer wasn't stupid enough to get them mixed up in our mess and risk expulsion for the both of us. "At least let me open my safe," I pleaded, trying to calm down. "Let me get my things."

He frowned. "I can't let you in, Maria, you have to understand that."

By now my head was spinning and I could barely think. No entrance to the labs? He couldn't have come up with a worse way to destroy me. I _needed_ the labs. They were the only reason I stayed in this little town at all. I needed the materials and instruments to complete my Heimeter, my dream. But – but if I couldn't even salvage my research… My life work… My hands started trembling. "Kevin," I said, and I hated how desperate I sounded, how weak. "Please. I _need_ it. I can – I can let you get it for me. I'll even give you my keys, and tell you the chain to open the safe." I took them from my neck and held them up to him hopefully, like a child offering him a present.

He looked around slowly and stood up. "Sorry," he apologized, slightly wary now. He had seen the shaking of my fingers. "I don't feel comfortable leaving you alone here. You should talk to the Tutors." Behind the refusal, I detected a hint of real concern, but it hardly mattered at this point.

* * *

That wasn't the worst of it. Not by half. At least I knew my safe would protect the folder, and no one would be able to steal or destroy it.

My cottage was different.

I made my way slowly down the road out of Limerick, feeling hungry and oddly numb, concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other and nothing more. The sun was setting by now, casting long, fiery shadows over the dirt. I was walking for a long time before I noticed something odd about the light and looked up.

Burning. My cottage was burning.

I ran up to it, uncomprehending. Almer was standing in front of it along with a handful of construction workers. He wore a satisfied smirk on his face as he watched the flames, his hands on his hips, and his eyes a little wild around the edges. My running slowed down until I finally came to a stop next to him, and, for a while, I could only stare at the flames, trying to come to terms with this absurd situation.

"What did you do?" I finally managed to choke out.

He turned his head towards me, feigning surprise. "Oh, was this the abandoned rat-hole where you were living? Sorry, I purchased it. I'm planning on building a new swimming pool."

I was frozen. A part of my mind wondered how it was possible. This was the house me and my mother had lived in all our lives. It had been abandoned after she died and I was put under the care of somebody else, but moving back into it had seemed natural, like the right thing to do. No one had questioned me or demanded any sort of payment. I guess I had just assumed it still belonged to me.

Apparently, I had been wrong.

I sprang into action, my hand diving into my pouch, but Almer saw it coming and grabbed my wrists. "Don't interrupt my construction, or I'll regrettably have to fine you," he said in an overly sweet voice, his eyes locked onto mine. They were oddly fixed - he wasn't completely himself yet. "And I don't think you'll be able to afford it." I didn't have time to fight him, so I simply let go of the stones and sprinted towards the flaming building, pulling the hood of my cloak over my head as I ran. I think he shouted something after me, but the words were drowned out under the roaring of the flames.

I ducked under burning doorframes, dodged to the side to avoid falling beams, rolled and jumped, covering my face with my sleeve. I saw my mother's seat by the chimney engulfed in flames, and for some reason that single image made me want to throw up. My eyes watered, but not because of the smoke.

I managed to get to my room and open the chest at the foot of my bed, grabbing a small bag I always kept there for emergencies, and the highest number of books I could fit in my hands. Then I jumped out the window, crashing through the glass, and stumbled and fell to the ground outside. It took less than ten seconds in all.

I scrambled away from the blazing heat on my hands and knees. And, once I was far enough that I didn't feel like my face was going to melt, I turned and sat cross-legged, simply staring, the things I had gathered spread on the ground around me.

My house was burning. The memories of the only happy days of my life, the days shared with my mother, were going up in flames. The fire licked the windows and climbed up the walls, destroying the very center of my life, and I could only stare.

After a while, I assembled the objects into the small bag again.

No, I was not badly burnt – the All-Proof substance had proved its worth again – but glass shards were embedded in my arm. I started to pluck them out dully, barely feeling the pain. "She's here! She's alright!" one of the men accompanying Almer shouted. I didn't look up, but heard them all come running towards me.

He came too, surprised at first to see me relatively unharmed. He watched me for a while while I kept plucking out glass, and then he smiled. It was a brutal smile, thin lips stretched on his ghost-like face and the wild light of cruelty in his eyes. "So _now_ do you realize where you belong, you bitch?"

I suppose what he wanted was to see me cry, to admit that he had won and grovel at his feet, to apologize for all the wrong I had done to him, to beg him to stop going after me.

I did none of those things. Instead, I finished cleaning up my arm and stood up in one smooth movement, facing him calmly. The only thing running through my mind in that moment was a tornado of five words. _Punch him in the face._

And so I did.


	11. Epilogue: Setting Sail

**Epilogue: Setting Sail**

* * *

He yelled and bent over, clutching his bloody nose. I punched him again, hard, and then I bolted towards the forest behind my cottage. "Bloody Hell, get her!"

It wasn't much of a chase - these woods had been my backyard since I was born, and I knew all the hidden crevices and the rocks that wouldn't crumble under your feet and where the tricky tree roots crossed the path. On the other hand, the men had to rely on their eyes, which were becoming less useful as the sky darkened, and didn't seem to grasp the concept of subtlety. The sounds of their cussing and swearing carried for miles in the silent forest.

Twice I sensed Almer's chains extending from my cottage like tentacles, searching for me. I stayed completely still, rubbed my thumb against the smooth surface of the only stone I had left - I had dropped the others at the clearing - and the chains ignored me like they ignored the trees. But he was thorough. He swiped over an enormous area, in a display of power I had never seen from any Alchemist. Then again, with so much Irsha at his disposal, it was no surprise he could reach that far.

Eventually the sounds stopped, and the forest grew quiet again. They had given up. The adrenalin in my veins that had been keeping me from breaking down slowly drained away, leaving me feeling empty. I stopped running and collapsed against a tree trunk.

I don't know for how long I sat under the cover of the trees, curled up in a tight ball. At some point I got up and made some redleaf paste to apply it over the worst of my wounds. Then I sat back down, gathering myself together, gradually reconstructing my mind from all the pieces it had broken into. My house had been destroyed. I was no longer welcome at the Academy. My most important treasure was locked away beyond my reach. All my possessions added up to a small, dirty bag, eight thousand Beris, and a pouch which only contained one of my three stones. And I was hungry, and my arm hurt.

I could try to get the Tutors into this. The trouble was, Almer hadn't done anything technically illegal. He had bought my house, so he had the right to burn it down if he wanted to. He had probably been careful that the thugs he used to bully Olm and Frell couldn't be traced back to him. Same for the bribes he'd worked into the Academy. Even if the Tutors carried out an investigation, it would be a long time before they came to any sort of conclusion, and in that time Almer could find many other ways to hurt me.

Besides, I'd be forced to admit I had poisoned him, and that alone was enough to grant me immediate expulsion. No, I couldn't count on any kind of justice. I was on my own.

I rummaged through my bag and found the golden necklace with the picture of my mother and me, the one with her initials engraved in it. It had no chain, but I slid it on the rope around my neck, between the iron key and the bronze key. I stared at it for some time. Then I got up, my teeth grit with determination.

I spent that night sneaking around like a thief in the dark. First I sneaked back into the clearing of my cottage and recovered my other two stones from the place where I had dropped them. I had to search for an entire hour every inch of the ground with only a feeble moonlight and glowing embers to guide me. But I did find them in the end - Almer wouldn't trouble himself with picking up measly fifteens.

Next I sneaked down to Limerick's docks and stole a boat. In my mind, it wasn't really stealing, since I was planning to return it. I made my way across the smooth, dark lake until I reached the Academy. I broke into the labs, which was no easy feat since wards were always put up at night. But, like I had told Rhiza, I could see the weak links in a chain, and, though it took me a long time, I managed to break them. Once inside I opened my safe, grabbed everything in it and stuffed it inside my bag. This wasn't really stealing either, since it all belonged to me. The angle of the green folder against my back was solid, reassuring.

Then I went to see Will in his dumpster. He opened the crumbling door to me warily, a knife held tightly in his hand, but when he saw who it was he relaxed. "Hullo there," he smirked, his teeth white against the dirt of his face. "Nut a good time to walk the ba'ways."

I stepped inside and dusted myself off. Will frowned when he got another look at the scratches on my hands and face, the redness in my eyes and my slightly singed hair, where my cloak hadn't protected me. "Excitin' evenin', huh," he commented.

"I'm leaving."

He grinned demonically, not missing a beat. "Can I keep yer house?"

"You can keep what's left of it if you give me a knife, a piece of rope and some traveling food."

"I dun't have food," he slouched. "An this knife's the only one I got." But he removed the rope that tightened his pants to his waist and handed it to me.

I thought for a moment. His knife looked nice - just the right size, and sharp and clean. A relatively new acquirement, no doubt. And I wasn't stupid enough to go traveling without a knife. They were necessary to cut and prepare food, as well as for the other less innocent uses. "How about I give you a heat rod for the knife?"

He grinned again. "Done."

Some people might say my trade with Will wasn't very fair. A heat rod, though a common enough product of the Academy, was worth at least double a knife. And what he would find rummaging through the ashes of my house would undoubtedly fetch a decent price, if only for the material alone. But I didn't have the heart to sell it myself, and at least that way I would know that someone would profit from this whole disaster.

When I left, he didn't ask me where I was going or whether I would be back. A part of me suspected that, despite all I'd done for him, he didn't really care.

* * *

When one loses everything they own, everything they know, they turn towards the only remaining constant in their life: family. Family acts as a safety net. Even if it all goes wrong, one can always rely on the comfort of a home and a meal and loving arms. Sadly, I had no family. My mother was dead, and, even if I knew where my father was, I would be dead too before going to him. The only man I could count on was an old, tired wine merchant who had already given me much more than I deserved.

I went to his house anyway, because I couldn't stomach leaving without saying goodbye. I was surprised to find the lights were on, and peered in through the window.

Jumma was seating on the kitchen table, his new girlfriend on his lap. They were laughing, feeding each other with a small spoon. From the other side of the glass, the scene looked impossibly warm and comforting - and I knew I would never belong in it. I got out one of the books from my bag, tore a page and scribbled a note, and slid it under his door. They didn't notice.

So, in the dead of night, I made the trip to Monnet. It was in the opposite direction from the Mirror Lake, towards the sea. The path twisted and turned and curled up through cliffs and rocks. When I finally topped the mountain, the sun was peeking out from the horizon, chasing the remnants of the fog away.

I looked back towards the Academy, towards my home, watching the dark lake in the distance. There was nothing left for me there. My research? I had no way to complete it anymore, not here, Almer had made sure of that. He had made sure I lost everything. I hated him so much I didn't understand the feeling myself. Hate wasn't even the word for it, it was _loathing,_ a chilling loathing instilled deep in my bones. It occurred to me then that, in a way, he had won. He had destroyed me so thoroughly I'd found no remedy but to flee from him like a whipped dog. I swore I would come back, much more powerful than I was now, and have my revenge.

And suddenly, standing there atop the hill, it all seemed hopelessly ridiculous. Staying locked in this island for sixteen years, without the least bit of interest for the world outside, concentrating on a petty fight with a noble's son that the rest of the world would never know about. It was so insignificant I wanted to laugh.

Then I looked to the front, to the endless sea stretching out at my feet, illuminated by the coming of a new dawn. Below me, the ships in the harbor stood like soldiers saluting the rising sun. A salty wind made my cloak dance, and my lips curled up in an ironic smile. _Well, Luffy,_ I thought. _We might meet again sooner than you think._ And I took the first step towards the shore.

I was doing something foolish and thoughtless and dangerous.

I was chasing the third stone.

* * *

_._

* * *

_A.N.: So, that was the end! It would be a great help to me if you guys could answer three questions:  
_

_1) What was the worst or most boring part of the story? Was there a part when you thought 'AGH, Mary Sue'?  
_

_2) Was the tidbit of romance unnecessary?  
_

_3) The ending: was it satisfying or did it feel too rushed? Were you hoping it would end differently? Would you read a Part 2 to this, or was this ending perfect and a Part 2 would ruin it?  
_

_If you have any other comments of the fic overall, positive or negative, feel free to post them. I always look for ways to improve!  
_

_The point of this? Well, I'm not sure myself. I know some of you will hate me for that ending, but I had planned it from the beginning. I guess I was thinking about all the islands Luffy must have visited and the people living in them, with their own stories and their own lives. I've always thought that the greatest thing about Luffy was not how badass he is or even his Haki or anything like that, but the way he inspires people. _

_Anyway._

_A special thank you to:  
_

_Diclonious57, ShouldaBeenGrace, MsWildLuck and Anybodythere, who have been with me from the very beginning._

_Shiningheart, who always guesses right about what's going to happen._

_Santoryuu3, Dancing on Clouds of Sorrow, Christmasloot and all the new readers that have actually taken the time to leave their thoughts._

_All my anonymous reviewers too, even if I don't know who you are._

___I cannot thank you guys enough. Without you, I would have never made it this far. Your amazing reviews encouraged me to keep going till the end. Thank you :)  
_


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